Issue 1: Summer 2008
Editorial
Welcome to the first issue of Experimental Conversations, Cork Film Centre's online journal devoted to experimental film, art cinema and video art.
As some readers will have noticed, it shares a title with Fergus Daly's documentary Experimental Conversations (2006). This is obviously no coincidence. Daly's work as both critic and filmmaker has always sought to explore, forge and, when necessary, imagine links between Irish and International film culture at its most aesthetically and philosophically advanced. The film Experimental Conversations connects Irish and French experimental filmmaking, highlighting the fact that experimental cinema (in the broadest sense of the term) is, today more than ever, an international dialogue.
We hope to create connections too, providing, on one hand, a focus on and for people locally and nationally involved with moving image art, and, on the other, by engaging with international work. Each issue will combine an eclectic selection of articles and interviews with news and reviews of relevant events in Cork and around Ireland.
The magazine Experimental Conversations comes into existence fully cognisant of the fact that the internet already boasts numerous sites devoted to non-mainstream cinema and artists' film and video, not least a number of impressive blog sites. Our aspiration is simply to be one voice, or rather one mouthpiece, in the discussions and exchanges of information around these subjects- preferably a vibrant, interesting and even useful one. To this end, we welcome any proposals for articles or reviews, any writing which, to borrow Nicole Brenez's wonderful definition of experimental cinema from Daly's documentary, is concerned with film and, by extension, video ‘not in terms of its conventions or uses but rather its powers'.
-Maximilian Le Cain
Editor