Bruce McClure

"Brown Pelicans at poolside . . . porpoises and family footage superimposed. An adolescent at the diving board seen from the neck down. A beach ball floating across the surface of a pool. Emulsion drenched." (Bruce McClure)

An anthology of one-minute films created by 60 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.

The artist used airbrush to spread ink on clear 16 mm film in his Brooklyn studio.

This event was part of Arika’s Kill Your Timid Notion Tour in 2008, preserved as part of their archive.

This event was part of Arika’s Kill Your Timid Notion Tour in 2008, preserved as part of their archive.

Personalised instruments are used to transform loops of pure black and white frames into an immersive riot of perceptual phenomenon in colour, motion and sound. Bruce will employ four adapted 16mm projectors, the motors modified, brass grids retro-fitted between lens and gate. A stroboscopic and intense sensory overload of flashing abstract forms, cut to ribbons by modified projectors. You’re met with a white strobing circle pulsing on screen and slowly transformed as additional, overlapping projectors create strange halo’s and spheres, odd 3D expansions and contractions. As more projectors are added the image is shredded under a beating grid, color and form thrumming in front of your eyes until, as the last projector dims and you’re left in the dark, crazy blue tendrils follow your gaze, after-images burned on the retina like a delicate coda to Bruce’s performances. -Kill Your Timid Notion festival

Bruce McClure multiple projector performance

If any film could eat you alive, it would be this one. This epic finale to Bruce McClure’s Wexner Center projection performance builds to an all-consuming crescendo of light and sound. On handwritten program notes that McClure distributed at another performance, he wrote in the margin: "There is never enough time before an execution." And McClure’s performance, especially by ending with the void of Untitled Compliment's maw, felt like an attempt to extend and retain a special type of vision before the petite mort of the house lights. It's an experience that can't be transmitted or recorded by any device other than being in that specific time and place. -Chris Stults, Wexner Center for the Arts

McClure creates hypnotic and immersive film experiences from a minimal quantity of audio-visual information. Loops constructed by bleaching clear frames from opaque emulsion are manipulated live by the filmmaker, using guitar effects pedals and adapted 16mm projectors, which have been modified in order to vary their intensity, speed and framing.

“Bruce McClure doesn’t make films, he performs them… Twirling knobs, flipping switches, and adjusting lenses, he coaxes a bank of whirring projectors into producing images impossible to record.” THE BROOKLYN RAIL.

A triple 16 mm projection performance, the minimalist NETHERGATE features metal scenic including horizontal and vertical slits with bi-packed loops of emulsion and transparent base ‘where obstructions replace passages’ (BM). The generated optical signals are processed by way of guitar effect pedals.

Three common time loops, metered as one translucent to three frames of emulsion, with accents arising from their insides. Nested within each is a deficient partner, cut from the same womb, but with a caesura marked by extra frames between one pair of its luminous ornaments. Cycling, polar coordinates are rendered rectangular on the screen making waves with a beginning and an end.