La Région Decentrale

9.7.16

Dear Michael [Snow],

I hope this note finds you well! Summer has finally come to San Francisco after what's been the foggiest and coldest August on record in the Bay.

Canyon Cinema is collaborating with the Exploratorium on a screening featuring “expanded cinema” artist duo Gibson + Recoder. This will be part of our ongoing Salon Series, which are free events designed as a platform for the community to directly engage and learn from moving image artists in an intimate setting. Artists are given an open forum to present work from their repertoire, discuss creative process, and share their inspirations. 

They would like to present a prepared projection performance of La Région Centrale entitled "La Région Decentrale or LRGOCNRL (La Région Centrale For Those Who Don't Have The Time)."

Exploratorium would pay the rental fee for the print and will be held to the terms of our standard loan agreement, but as their intended presentation goes beyond what I would consider as "a standard film showing" I've asked that Sandra and Luis present this proposal to you (which I've pasted below and is also attached)

Please let me know if we have your approval to proceed and if you have any questions or comments.

My very best,

Antonella [Bonfanti, Director of Canyon Cinema Foundation]

Dear Mr. Michael Snow,

Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder, otherwise know as “expanded cinema” artist duo Gibson + Recoder. Perhaps it was far too brief to recall, but over the past 15 years or so we’ve befriended you in at least two separate occasions where your work was prominently featured – once at the opening of the Whitney’s Into The Light exhibition here in New York and then again during The Brakhage Center Symposium at CU Boulder where we were visiting lecturers.

Canyon Cinema is requesting that we make contact to get your authorization for a prepared projection performance of La Région Centrale for an upcoming Canyon Salon event. We humbly submit the following draft proposal for your consideration and (hopefully) approval:

La Région Decentrale

A projector quartet for Michael Snow's 1971 La Région Centrale.

Prepared Projection by Gibson + Recoder

As far as we know, this experiment has never been attempted before, though Snow himself has already broken ground with the delirious condensation of his long durational structural masterwork Wavelength (1966-67) in WVLNT (Wavelength For Those Who Don't Have The Time) (2003). La Région Decentrale or LRGOCNRL (La Région Centrale For Those Who Don't Have The Time) reshuffles and compresses the 180 minute single-screen continuum down to 45 minutes by simultaneously unspooling all four reels which comprise the celluloid notation of this work via a quartet of projectors.

Of course the audio will be playing from all four projectors. We are still mapping out the precise projection scheme, the simplest being to position all four projectors side-by-side to from an extended horizon; or position two adjacent frames to form a baseline upon which a second duplicate set is stacked. A slightly more complex set up would be to fashion a random cluster of tilted frames at varying degrees as if they were thrown like a roll of imaginary dice at the screen.

If you agree to the above proposal, a single (simultaneous) screening of your film would be scheduled to take place in San Francisco’s Exploratorium during our short residency there in November while in preparation for our exhibition titled Powers of Resolution. If you haven’t already visited this extraordinary venue, it is a place of curiosity, experimentation, and enchantment – a laboratory of and for the senses that facilitates active participation and immersion at the intersection of the arts and sciences. In a certain sense we would be exhibiting La Région Centrale with this spirit of collective exploration and wonder in mind. We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder

9.8.16

Dear Antonella (and Sandra & Luis),

The simultaneous projection of all the parts of La Région Centrale is an interesting idea. The auditorium that you will use will no doubt present some difficulties for setting up the projectors. Four projectors, one beside the other would be interesting. Perhaps most interesting would be four projections with 2 on top of 2.

Anyway, I hereby approve and hope the projection goes well. Please share any documentation of the event that comes about.

Best,

Michael Snow