The State Film Centre of Victoria has been renamed the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), elevating its status from a state to a national institution and extending its domain to incorporate the post-celluloid media of reproduction. It has also moved into an imposing new edifice on Federation Square, alongside the National Gallery of Victoria’s new gallery of Australian art, in a tourist site generously endowed with chic restaurants and shops. The ACMI edifice houses two cinemas, offices, shops, restaurants and coffee shops, as well as a large gallery. For the opening exhibition in the new building, Ross Gibson, the inaugural Creative Director of ACMI and now Research Professor of New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Technology, Sydney, curated an exhibition of ACMI acquisitions, entitled ‘Remembrance and the Moving Image’, and edited a sumptuous catalogue. Comprised of thirty-two artworks, the exhibition was divided into two parts: Persistence of Vision, followed by Reverberation.
The works embraced a variety of media and genres. Although most were displayed on DVD, the artists had originally employed Super-8 or 16 mm film, VHS or digital video, pixelvision, computer animation, inter-active CD-ROM or DVD. The range of genres included archival documentary, travel documentary, autobiographical memoir, art video, portraiture, staged performance, and re-configuration of pre-existing works. However, in most cases genre boundaries were crossed. In fact, one could categorise all the works as essays—experimental, contemplative, autobiographical and/or underground essays. Gibson has always been a fan of the essay film—especially of Chris Marker’s practice—and he is himself an accomplished essayist, on film and in print. This exciting exhibition enabled the general public to share Gibson’s passionate commitment to the art of the essay; to... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline