Expanded Cinema

The exploration of the spatial conditions of film and its presentation is as old as the medium itself. Time and again efforts have been made to render visible the parameters inherent in the medium or that had been laid down as standards, or to overcome them and to recognize their accompanying perceptual practices. This subject was intensely examined as early as in the 1920s with the establishment of movie theaters, from which, especially, vigorous impetus with respect to reflection on the projection equipment emerged.

After World War II, it was experimental film, Expanded Cinema, and film installations that advanced the discussion about spatial conditions. In the process, attention was increasingly given, on the one hand, to new architectural conditions of film presentation, such as, for example, the museum, public space, and the gallery. On the other hand, the aspects of perception and the interaction between image, space, and recipient clearly gained importance. Reflection on space increasingly meant dealing with the aspects of motion, processuality, and continuous becoming.