Join Invisible Spectrum, an experimental cinema feast presented by Outtakes Screening Group. Catering to adventurous, creative film lovers, Invisible Spectrum features 74 works, 3 performances, from over 60 filmmakers and artists. Enter the dream of celluloid and discover the hidden but indispensable treasures.
More detailed program information will be announced in the coming days.
Phantom Time Romance: A Return to 1970s Experimental Film
Program 3
1. Rivers of Darkness/Rivers of Light
Jon Voorhees | 1972 | 41 min | 16mm
"RIVERS, particularly, reveals many interesting qualities. There is a sensibility in it that I am willing to trust to the end, no matter what weaknesses the film contains. Strong lyrical qualities. A beautiful merging of personal incongruities and irrelevancies. The only time the film fails (to me) is in its occasional frame freezes which look like infatuations in otherwise healthy lyrical footage...." Jonas Mekas, Village Voice, March 1973
2. Mineralogist (鉱物学者)
Isao Kota | 1977 | 11 min | HD
“8mm film is shot at 18 or 24 fps and projected at the same speed. The slower the projector’s frame rate, the more intermittent the images flickers, the more you become aware that you are looking at slides one after another. So I decided to film images that would appear ‘like normal’ under slow projection. I kept pressing the shutter that my finger nearly cramped. Since ‘looking at one photograph after another’ is the very concept of cinematic motion, the shooting speed is determined by the rhythm of the finger, and the projection speed is just an approximate.” —— Isao Kota
3. Full Moon (満月)
Isao Kota | 1979 | 13 min | HD
“I cut a portion of a photograph into a rectangle and used it like a camera’s viewfinder. The part I cut out consisted of a series of continuous photographs showing a finger pointing toward that window. A corner of the room is repeatedly superimposed onto and removed from this viewfinder sequence, creating an effect in which, within the overall image, a small window for partial observation keeps shifting.”—— Isao Kota
4. 8-1/2×11
James Benning | 1976 | 32 min | 16mm
“Benning’s landscape works, with their meticulous, reverential compositions, have been located in the history of American realist painting and photography, and also belong to the tradition of American nature writing…The formal elegance of the compositions somehow becomes surreal over time, as we look into, instead of at, the place."- Danni Zuvela
Print Courtesy of @undergroundcinemafestival_3 and @filmcoop
Phantom Time Romance: A Return to 1970s Experimental Film
Program 2
1. Serving Time
Jon Voorhees | 1972 | 30 min | 16mm
"A diary. Nine months: My 1971-January 1972. Encompassing those things that touch our persons; earth, air, water, fire and celluloid. Finished and dedicated to Alexander Schweig on the occasion of his birth." J.V.
2. Destiny… The Universal Fantasy
Jon Voorhees | 1974 | 26 min | 16mm
"The vision of a 17-year old Parisian woman as she makes her daily 20-minute metro ride to work. In four daydreams she sees her man, an unemployed American musician, seem to live a period of two or three hundred months during the length of her ride" J.V. 3. Level Crossing (踏切)
Isao Kota | 1975 | 20 min | HD
“The movement of the human eyeball is very similar to the head-bobbing motion of pigeons or chickens. I wanted to transform this busy, rapid rhythm into images. Holding an 8mm camera above my head, I walked while filming. Later, I projected the frozen frame to the screen. In order to extract the ‘movement of the eyes,’ I cropped the image and re-filmed it frame by frame. I also made a mask to imitate the ‘blinking’ effect during the re-filming.”
—— Isao Kota
4. NEBULA
Isao Kota | 1973 | 8 min | HD
“I filmed the light emitted from a projector lens through a slab of ice. I then immersed the resulting 8mm film in diluted bleach, agitating it to create scratches and wounds. After drying, the strips of film stuck together, and I tore them apart one by one with a sharp snap. The emulsion marks that peeled away along the shape of the perforations writhed restlessly across the image.”
—— Isao Kota
5. Kō-Fū (光風)
Touch Me | 1977 | 11min | HD
“Kō-Fū means ‘shining wind.’ It refers to the scene shortly after a typhoon has passed, when strong winds still sweep across the rice fields, the ears of rice sway in the currents of air, and the raindrops clinging to them sparkle as they reflect the sunlight.”
Print courtesy of @filmcoop and @undergroundcinemafestival_3
Phantom Time Romance: A Return to 1970s Experimental Film
-Program 1-
1. Patience
Jon Voorhees | 1970 | 13 min | 16mm
"For Anne Kofke. 1970 Summer diary. The first of my own work to truly enrapture my imagination of the incredible possibilities for expression contained within film."
2. Shoveling
Jon Voorhees | 1970 | 7 min | 16mm
Loop variations of a man shoveling snow.
3. Whispers Delaying Grace
Jon Voorhees | 1973 | 12 min | 16mm
"Dampness permeates the stillness./ The quality of the sounds/ that enter this geography of the senses/ is far distant/ almost overhead-/ the slow surf, miles away./ crickets./ a slamming screen door./ their lights reach out through the shining night./ Moonlight glows from beneath the shadows./ The heart swells./ It is our dream- and we are a part of it." - J.V
4. Compass (コンパス)
Isao Kota | 1980 | 13 min | HD
“When tungsten film expose in daylight, it appears blue. To correct this blue shift, an amber filter is attached to the lens. I removed the filter and gradually moved it away from the camera. I continued to photo while rotating the filter. As the shutter speed slowed down, the filtered area gradually distorted.”
5. Gentle Breeze (微風)
Isao Kota | 1974 | 16 min | HD
“A moment filmed in my past apartment. Occasionally, wind breeze through the window. I froze the 8mm film and re-film each frame. Since I changed the camera’s direction or focal length with each frame, the character’s movement remain continuous, yet the image was re-cropped each time.”
6. Preparation (プレパラート)
Isao Kota | 1977 | 12 min | HD
“I placed photographs on a protractor, changing angles and photos as I film. The image repeats a wiping effect. Each wipe, a photo spinning on palm appears. The wiped photos is the back of a man walking. He takes the spinning photographs. As the camera dolly in, the two photos become one.”
7. Film Feedback
Tony Conrad | 1974 | 16 min | 16mm
Filming the screen of a small film viewer. In the darkroom, the film feeding out of the camera were immediately processed, dried, and projected onto the screen as negatives.
Print Courtesy of @undergroundcinemafestival_3 and @filmcoop
Phantom Time Romance: A Return to 1970s Experimental Film
I have long wanted to create a series structured by “decades”, for experimental filmmakers drifting outside the periphery of our vision, and for works that are not digitized and better experienced through film projection. This program dives into the praxis of five filmmakers working in the 70s.
In the era of “para-film”, experimental cinema has become a historical term. Moving forward takes courage; looking back is no less difficult. 1970 is neither a beginning nor an end - it is simply a moment in the current of light that deserves to be arrived again. (@zyylwx )
Showing works by -
Jon Voorhees
A name that has not been brought up for long. His films were screened by Jonas Mekas and are referenced in Wheeler Winston Dixon’s book The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema. Beyond these traces, little documentation is available.
Touch Me (達智巳一)
Active for only a few years in the 1970s. From his earliest 8mm works, he developed his own unique hand-made film through techniques such as time-lapse. He created ten films using his original, labor-intensive methods on DIY optical printer, and only three are known to survive today. He stands among the 1970s filmmakers most deserving of rediscovery.
James Benning
Benning’s structured yet poetic images meditates on American landscapes. His life and work have been shaped by his fierce impulse to travel: he has driven cars and motorcycles across the United States for decades, and his artistic trajectory has remained restlessly in motion.
Tony Conrad
A pioneer of structural film and drone music. His most well-known involvement was with the Theatre of Eternal Music, an experimental music ensemble founded by La Monte Young.
Isao Kota (居田伊佐雄)
Born in Niigata Prefecture, Kota began making personal films in 1972. He made a total of 35 films in 8mm and 16mm formats, which were widely shown around the world. Fading out of the film world for long, his works were considered nearly impossible to see again — until 2023, 34 of his films were digitally restored and screened in a special program at @undergroundcinemafestival_3
Across ten distinct mediums, the artists propose ten possible pathways into shamanism. Within this unfolding landscape, Outtakes will present a cinema unit — Animation, Experimental Cinema, and Parapsychology—to the collective exhibition Ten Sentences of Neo-Shamanism.
Location: Nov 22th @ Groundless Factory, Beijing
Ticket: link in bio
Across ten distinct mediums, the artists propose ten possible pathways into shamanism. Within this unfolding landscape, Outtakes will present a cinema unit — Animation, Experimental Cinema, and Parapsychology—to the collective exhibition Ten Sentences of Neo-Shamanism.
Location: Nov 22th @ Groundless Factory, Beijing
Ticket: link in bio
Program 2
Battements Solaires
Patrick Bokanowski · 29 min · 35mm · HD
Walking towards the fire. In a ceaseless streamof light, people, landscapes and objects lead us to mysterious regions. Animation film with special effects.
Brouillard: Passage #14
Alexandre Larose · 10 min · 35mm · HD
A path that extends from my family's backyard into Lac-Saint-Charles (Québec City), condensed in multiple layers.
Edge of Alchemy
Stacey Steers · 2017 · 18 min · 35mm · 4K
In this handmade film, characters lifted from early silent films are cast into a surreal epic with an upending of the Frankenstein story and a contemporary undercurrent of hive collapse.
Europe Resurrection (欧洲回声)
Junhui Wu · 2019 · 6 min · 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, Super 8 · HD
A collage of multiple film formats—35mm, 16mm, 8mm, and Super 8—shot during a trip to Europe years earlier. The travelogue forms the base layer, upon which still images from the filmmaker’s personal life are superimposed.
Echoes Between Seeing #2 （凝视之间的回响 #2）
Nan Wang · Video · 8 min · 2025
Merging analog noise, 16mm film grain, travelogue and AI. Hybrid landscapes emerge—neither human nor artificial, neither document nor hallucination.
Maternal Filigree
Sandra Davis · 1980 · 16mm · 18 min
"vision rising thru inwards… it trembles like poetry, music – its rhythms OF and-at-one-with the experience itself. You have stiched a meaningful weave of symbolism throughout but always in the sense ‘make it new’ (as Pound translates the Chinese), so that symbol rubs and clashes with symbol, so that each is always vibrant, so that no symbol could harden midst the frets and stops of your ‘music’ – that symbols be felt beyond any set to of understanding…” — Stan Brakhage
Special Thanks to 铎哥和艾阔
Courtesy of @lightcone_officiel@filmcoop
In August this year, Anthony McCall’s *Line Describing a Cone* was hand-delivered to Beijing by friends.
Serving as the finale of our program *The Shape of Time*, the film bookends the lineup—featuring works by Fred Worden, Stan Brakhage, Jang Mingyong, and James Edmonds— to a luminous conclusion.
As the first “solid” light sculpture film to transform cinematic history, *Line Describing a Cone* employs a minimalist narrative: a single point of light slowly traces a circle over thirty minutes. Yet the true narrative unfolds in the space between the audience and the theater.
Following Anthony McCall’s instructions, viewers were invited to move freely, to smoke, and to let their bodies intersect the beam of light—engaging physically with the projection.
Thanks to Jungle Vision (林象), the venue generously coordinate relevant procedures and regulations, allowing us to achieve optimal projection settings with the help of a fog machine. Wenxuan gave away free cigarettes to the audience.
And then, something interesting began to build up...
Documentation: @yj8978_@yisen_jiang
Projectionist: @ge_tong_wang
Venue & Support: Jungle Vision 林象文化 @anniesong126 , 深马
16mm print courtesy of: @filmcoop
Special Thanks: @tirtzaeven
A moment from Jangwook’s projection performance. Heesue is operating the second projector, while Sandy Ding, an old friend, observes quietly in the back.
@jangwook_lee_spacecell@heesuekwon@dr._xiin
7.20 Program 14: Twin Labyrinths
(Post-Screening Q&A with Tamami Midorikawa and Akihiro Suzuki)
1. The Butterfly (1976)
Rosalind Schneider·14 min·16mm
-A poetic encounter between a child and a butterfly
2. Night Dances (1995)
Sandra Lahire·15 min·HD
-“Night Dances is for my mother, who died whilst helping me to make this piano musical. The Dance of Death is bound to life – Lechaim – as we whirl together by Hebrew gravestones. A dreaming woman is ferried through our decaying city. This is the age of the Personal Computer – the Private Catacomb for the switched-on elite. Its dark doorways are for the wandering homeless… true survivors.”—S.L.
3. Stages of Mourning (2004)
Sarah Pucill·17 min·HD
-Pucill’s journey of bereavement. In as much as this is a meditation on coming to terms with loss, the film is an exploration of how our relationship with the dead is made different through film. The artist orders image fragments of her late lover and collaborator, Sandra Lahire. By trying to physically immerse herself into photographs and film footage or by restaging these, Pucill forms a continuous stream of a life of two lovers.
4. Salvia Sisters （サルビア姉妹 ，1995)
Tamami Midorikawa·36 min·HD
-Monologues of sisters abandoned by their mother and of a mother who abandoned her daughter overlap with seemingly unrelated everyday scenes and conversations of young women. Although documentary in tone, the narrative gradually seeps in and takes hold.
5. Left-Handed Memories (1989)
Shellie Fleming·15 min·16mm
-Images of frames and framed materials recur. Pages of a dictionary flip by, and it is here that the viewer can see a reference to Will Hindle. Entry words echo his film titles - Billabong, Chinese Firedrill etc. A soft-focus female nude, reminiscent of an Edward Weston photograph, becomes increasingly scratched as the footage runs, a memento mori of the plastic material itself. Much, the film tells us, is beautiful, and much will be forgotten. (Free Entry)
Courtesy of @academymuseum@filmcoop@luxmovingimage@lightcone_officiel
7/20 Program 13: Melancholy in the Mirror
1. Local Color (1987)
Tatsu Aoki ·10 min ·16mm
-Through layers of optical printing, a local street dissolves into impressionistic colors.
2. Retrospectroscope (1998)
Kerry Laitala ·5 min· 16mm
-The Muses of Cinema represented by the female figures on the disk, have emerged from a dark Neoclassical past. Streams of images spin around, in an attempt to harness notions of a cinematic prehistory tracing past motions and gestures to burn their dance on the surface of the retinas.
3. Aporia III (1983)
Gary Doberman· 25 min· 16mm
-“Images cannot contain experience. Images can only contain the image of experience. The image is not an ’equivalency‘ of experience, it substitutes itself for experience.”
4. The Mercury (水星，1995)
Miho Nagaya·24 min·HD
-By layering different aspects of light, for example, lightning and blinking fluorescent lights, The Mercury leads introspective images to a release.
5. Bleared Eyes of Blue Glass (2023)
Kyujae Park·18 min·HD
The film expand on the verbal images from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. This film plays with water—and more precisely, with light—yet it unfolds in a starkly black-and-white form, occasionally punctuated by flashes of color, taking us on a nocturnal journey where the shadow of a person is gradually realized.
6. AQUARIUM (1991)
Kawaguchi Hajime·5 min·DCP
-By projecting the image onto a screen hanged in the air and stabilizing it, we try to make the dolphin swim in the air.
7. Dutchman’s Photographs (オランダ人の写真，1976)
Isao Kota·6 min·DCP
-A series on the movement of walking barefoot through the ocean waves, produced using several hundred photographs. Like simply arranging playing cards on top of a table, the display of these photographs in rapid succession according to a rule can be considered a ‘moving puzzle’.
8. Pulse (1981)
Keiichi Minegishi·6 min·DCP
-Synchronous and asynchronous industrial flickering generate and dissolve the Phenakistoscope effect.
Courtesy of @canyoncinema@filmcoop@undergroundcinemafestival_3@image_forum@lightcone_officiel
