Atmospheric frames: diagrammatic bodies and spatial sensations in the experimental moving image

This practice-based PhD research re-examines the notion of the frame and its spatiality within experimental moving image and exhibition contexts by foregrounding the connections between Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the diagram, Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of montage, and Jonas Mekas’s diaristic practice. In doing so, I establish my position in experimental moving image practice and propose a new methodology through the synthesis of practice and theory. Beginning with Deleuze’s diagram, as developed in his reading of Francis Bacon’s paintings in Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (1981), the research then extends to Sergei Eisenstein’s concept of montage and its ecstatic space, illuminating the spatial structure that organises the sensuous conflict in the mind of the ambulatory spectator in terms of architectural form and spatial composition. Both diagrammatic and spatial ideas are subsequently integrated into the understanding of poetic cinema within the expanded cinema context, guiding the development of the “Expanded Atmosphere.” By engaging with editing techniques and the projector beam, this study articulates the significance of frames in constituting a new spatial and mental structure. Atmosphere, in turn, offers an avenue for comprehending spatial arts as a creative modulation of the moving image environment within contemporary art contexts, thereby revealing the potential cartographic connectivity of physical space, in which viewers find themselves floating, fragmented, and suspended.