Available From UC Press

Making Images Move

Handmade Cinema and the Other Arts

Gregory Zinman

Making Images Move reveals a new history of cinema by uncovering its connections to other media and art forms. In this richly illustrated volume, Gregory Zinman explores how moving-image artists who worked in experimental film pushed the medium toward abstraction through a number of unconventional filmmaking practices, including painting and scratching directly on the film strip; deteriorating film with water, dirt, and bleach; and applying materials such as paper and glue. This book provides a comprehensive history of this tradition of “handmade cinema” from the early twentieth century to the present, opening up new conversations about the production, meaning, and significance of the moving image. From painted film to kinetic art, and from psychedelic light shows to video synthesis, Gregory Zinman recovers the range of forms, tools, and intentions that make up cinema’s shadow history, deepening awareness of the intersection of art and media in the twentieth century, and anticipating what is to come.

Gregory Zinman is Assistant Professor of Film and Media in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology and is a coeditor, with John Hanhardt and Edith Decker-Phillips, of We Are in Open Circuits: Writings by Nam June Paik.

“Gregory Zinman traces a bold new path through the history of media art. Putting aside the emphasis on photographic representation that has been a near-constant in debates concerning filmic ontology, Zinman turns to the handmade and the abstract, finding there a rich set of artistic practices and an opportunity to probe timely theoretical questions. Essential reading for scholars of contemporary art and media.”—Erika Balsom, author of After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation

“Making Images Move offers at once a lively account of cameraless cinemas, an invaluable supplement to the study of experimental and avant-garde film, and a compendium to the study of contemporary digital and interactive cinemas that have redefined the conventions of commercial entertainment.”—Akira Lippit, author of Cinema without Reflection: Jacques Derrida’s Echopoiesis and Narcissism Adrift

“A much-needed celebration of the achievements of these artists, many of whom are almost entirely unaccounted for in the literature of the field. Zinman has unearthed a wealth of original material in this comprehensive and compelling history.”—Roger Rothman, author of Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small

“Gregory Zinman expands and deepens our understanding of the impact of the moving image on art and culture. He deftly constructs a critical method and historiography that embraces diverse modalities of moving-image making, and in the process, he rethinks the boundaries of the moving image itself. There’s a lot to discover in this book! An important and beautifully illustrated volume that should be read by every student of film, video, media, and art history.”—John Hanhardt, curator and author of Bill Viola

392 pp.7 x 10Illus: 100 color images

9780520302730$45.00|£38.00Paper

Jan 2020