Anthony McCall showing at Langton

As part of a loose movement exploring the notion of “extended cinema”, Anthony McCall has been creating film installations and performances for over 30 years. Four Projected Movements was produced in 1975 as a further exploration of a previous work (called Long Film for Four Projectors). It has rarely been shown in the US. On September 14 and 15, New Langton Arts offered audiences a chance to interact with this early McCall work, giving some art historical perspective to viewers who may only have seen McCall’s digital projection now up at SFMOMA.

Photo credit: Chris Anthony Diaz 

Repurposing one of the light wedges from Long Film for Four Projectors, the work explores the seeming gravitational pull that McCall’s solid light forms are famous for. During the screening, audience members trailed their fingers into the beam, navigated around and through it, gingerly stepped over it, and even lay underneath, looking up as the slowly moving blade of light interacted with the architectural frame.

Photo credit: Chris Anthony Diaz 

After placing the projector in the corner of the theater, parallel to the wall, a single fifteen-minute reel of film was run through in all four possible ways: head-to-tail, tail-to-head, head-to-tail back-to-front, and tail-to-head back-to-front. This produces four different sweeps through space: wall to corner, ceiling to corner, corner to floor and ceiling to wall. The plane of light transitions vertically and horizontally, confronting the viewer with a question of spatial orientation and movement. “Durational structure” is McCall’s term for the result, a work of art that exist somewhere between the spatial dynamics of sculpture and the time-based medium of film.