Windowscapes, dreamscapes and screen texts: train travel as performative practice in experimental film

ABSTRACT

Echoing the current research on mobilities, performative practice and the performative documentary, railway journey in screen texts is increasingly seen as a complex embodied, experiential and performative practice. However, although train films have received some attention in film criticism, little is known about the performative potential of train travel in experimental film. To fill this gap, I take a phenomenological stance on railway journeying to demonstrate how several stylistically distinct and rarely screened experimental films stage passengering through the display of window views or larger sections of trainspace, turning it into productive site of contemplation, creative activity and artistic expression.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance
• train travel
• experimental film
• embodiment
• railway mobilities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Cobh Hz is available on Julie Murray’s Vimeo website: https://vimeo.com/118162403. Julie Murray is an Irish born filmmaker who lives and works in the United States. Her work ranges from found footage to diary films, which reflect on the relationship between painting, photography and the form, texture and pictorial content of the moving image.

2 Soundtrack has been released on a DVD, Guy Sherwin – Optical Sound Films (1971–2007) (LUX, 2008). Originally trained as a painter, Guy Sherwin (born 1948) is a London-based filmmaker known for optical sound films, live performances, multi-screen projections and installations, which explore the relationship between time, sound, image and lights, seen as the fundamental elements of cinema.

3 Night Train has been released on a DVD, Guy Sherwin – Optical Sound Films (1971–2007) (LUX, 2008).

4 A three-minute excerpt of On the Train to Kutná Hora is available on Ann Deborah Levy’s Vimeo website: https://vimeo.com/134969621. Trained as a painter and photographer, Ann Deborah Levy is an artist and filmmaker based in New York whose films investigate interactions between landscapes, locations, perception, memory, imagination and filmmaking.

5 See note 4 above.

6 Two Roll Camera Roll is available through Canyon Cinema. Jon Behrens (1964–2022) was a Seattle based filmmaker, photographer and composer who created abstract, hand-painted, optically printed, diary and city symphony films along with original sound designs.

7 Sphinx on the Seine is available on TiBOR Nagy’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OydU9YzYXz8. Paul Clipson (1965–2018) was a San Francisco-based artist and filmmaker known. His camera edited and largely improvised films, installations and live performances explore the relationship between visual music, poetry, the subconsciousness, time, memory, light and the surrounding world.

Additional information

Funding

This work is funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, under the project Lost highways, forgotten travels: The road movie in the post-war American avant-garde and experimental film through the lens of women and men filmmakers (grant number UMO-2018/31/D/HS2/01553).