Since creating some of my own moving images and being made aware of the Structuralist filmmakers, i have noticed some very strong links between their movement and my practice. Not only do the structuralists have affinity with my moving image work but i feel like they also share a great deal with my wider practice. Structuralist film came from the criticism of P. Adams Sitney identifying a decisive trend within avant-garde cinema. Two keys points from the structural movement was this idea of film being an illusion and making the viewer aware of the fact what they were watching was far from reality. This persistent prompting of a distorted reality was far from the classical cinema experience. Instead the structuralists toyed with the ‘perfect' vision of hollywood and created there own avant-garde disorder in a response.
“Their films could only be watched in a state of hyper-awareness where the viewer was constantly reminded that the content of the image was no more than an illusion.”
A second aspect that I could start to relate to my own practice was the idea of a predetermined outcome that dictated the whole film. Settling on a set of strict instructions to create work inside reminded me of the practice of Minimal artists Sol LeWitt. LeWitt’s work exists just as predominantly as a set of words as it did when it appeared as finished piece on a wall. Within structural film the structures that supported the film differed in complexity. As well as ranging from the purley abstract to elements of distorted realism. I also found it interesting to learn that some of these film makers would appropriate their own personal footage to experiment with just as i had done when making my moving images.