kinoKULTURE has risen from its first incarnation as kinodisobey in 1996 to become the mainstay of The Chamber of Pop Culture - an exhibition space that straddles, schizophrenically, the various media of what might be called ‘alternative arts’. Like The Horse Hospital (the building that contains them both), kinoKULTURE aims to be both austere and welcoming, hardcore and whimsical, sociable yet serious, responsive AND dictatorial.

We run a programme of monthly video screenings with special events, one-nighters and premieres in between. Programming decisions are made by the three of us - Roger, Kate and myself - and also, in part, by the stream of suggestions and offers that filters through from our audience. All three of us make our own films. Roger and Kate work as costume designers and Roger as an art director. Our passion for film is intense and fuelled by a critical perspective.

The focus of the monthly programmes is more likely to be led by juxtaposition than by themes - or at least juxtaposition within a mystery theme. Classic feature films clash with subversive cult shorts, commercials, pop promos, documentaries, experimentals, narratives. In any one night you might see La Dolce Vita alongside Jimi Tenor’s Urinator and something from Brian Griffin’s ever-expanding oeuvre with new experimental work by a resident filmmaker or a fresh face. It’s a rollercoaster ride into uncharted territory; plumbing the depths of the bizarre and lowbrow (the trash surrealism of Carey Loren’s films for Destroy All Monsters) and scaling the heights of high art and classic film making.

This screening policy is, for us, a vision of how film can be seen afresh and through new contexts. Programming is a constant source of inspiration and a continual opening up of possibilities.

Each carefully curated programme can be read on a number of levels, dependent on the degree of commitment that the audience chooses to make - one can play the game of subversive join-the-dots or choose instead to sit back, smoke, drink and enjoy. If nothing else, we ask that people come to our screenings with open eyes and open minds.

By working in these ways the monthly programmes, like The Chamber of Pop Culture’s roll call of exhibitions is never predictable. Unlikely and surprising combinations of work means that our audience fluctuates between hardcore film buffs, commercial directors, music afficionados, writers, the inspired and the intrigued - sharing a common passion in diverse ways.

kinoWEEKENDER, the festival that we staged last year involved inviting a counter-cultural ‘Hall of Fame’ (Nan Goldin, Bruce Gilbert, Joe Coleman, Dennis Cooper, Gilles Peterson, Nick Zedd et al) to effectively curate their own kinoKULTURE. The films selected formed two-and-a-half days of practically non-stop, back-to-back screenings. From Nan Goldin’s choice of Vivienne Dick’s short films to Julien Temple’s of The Colour of Pomegranate’s and Dennis Cooper’s mind-blowing and death-defying double bill Body Without Soul (a Czech documentary on child pornography rings and the pathologist/director who cuts up dead bodies at night and shoots the films during the day) with Robert Bresson’s The Devil Probably. There were record audiences for an event that was both a series of film screenings and an exercise in international cultural curating.

It cannot go without mention that London, clearly, is currently proving to be an epicentre of film presentation. Independent film clubs abound, each with particular views on how best to represent work in unique and inspirational ways, and with practically all of them maintaining capacity crowds over long periods of time. They do, in fact, often have as much to say as installation pieces in themselves as they do about the films they programme - the balance between the two slipping and sliding for good or bad. It is the luxury of running a film club to be able to experiment and the dynamic of their proliferation is the force of diversity.

Obviously, kinoKULTURE has to be seen within that context. Yet something else is happening here...

For information on these and more contact Ian White on 0171 833 3644.

Full article published in Filmwaves - Issue 4, Spring 1998. Subscribe now!