Tomb Raiding Cinema: Scratch video to experimental machinima

Join us for a screening of artist moving image exploring the collision between cinema and videogames. This programme traces the emergence of machinima, from its precursors in the 1980s through to the early 2000s, an under-investigated period between Y2K anxiety and the Global Financial Crisis that produced groundbreaking works of experimentation when filmmakers began using videogames as a cinematic canvas.

The programme opens with George Snow's ‘Shuttle Disaster’ (1986) from the University of Dundee's REWIND Artists’ Video collection. The work is an example of scratch video, a British art movement of the 1980s in which filmmakers recorded broadcast television and re-edited the footage into fast-cut, politically charged works inspired by the sampling and mixing culture of hip-hop. ‘Shuttle Disaster's’ collage of early computer graphics and TV news footage dissects the Cold War propaganda divide and sets the scene for what follows.

The remaining films are examples of machinima - where videogame engines replace the traditional film camera. Peggy Ahwesh's 'She Puppet' (2001) reimagines Lara Croft in a poetic odyssey of entrapment through the sun-scorched landscapes of Tomb Raider.

At the heart of the programme is Phil Solomon's trilogy, 'In Memoriam (Mark LaPore)' (2007–2008), which he created as an elegy for film and his friend and fellow filmmaker Mark LaPore. Filmed inside 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas', these works feature brooding, rain-soaked scenes - not unlike Scotland - and steeped in themes of grief, loss, and post-9/11 decay.

1. George Snow's "Shuttle Disaster" (1989) – 6 mins
2. Peggy Ahwesh's "She Puppet" (2001) – 15 mins
3. Phil Solomon's trilogy In Memoriam (Mark LaPore): a."Rehearsals for Retirement" (2007) – 12 mins b. "Last Days in a Lonely Place" (2007) – 21 mins c."Still Raining, Still Dreaming" (2008) – 12 mins

Total screening duration: 1 hour 8 minutes

Recommended age guide 15+. Content warning for videogame violence.

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Host or Publisher The National Library of Scotland at Kelvin Hall