Intermedia and Expanded Cinema, both as critical approach and artistic practice, left an indelible mark in a period of Japanese art history that is broadly considered to be one of its most dynamic moments in the wake of its postwar reemergence.

Despite the burgeoning interest in academic and curatorial circles in this segment of Japanese art history, the paucity of readily available material in a language other that Japanese has meant the local context, particularly the ways in which the terms were critically debated, was relatively neglected.

This book assesses the contemporary status of photochemical film practice against a backdrop of technological transition and obsolescence. It argues for the continued relevance of material engagement for opening up alternative ways of seeing and sensing the world. Questioning narratives of replacement and notions of fetishism and nostalgia, the book sketches out the contours of a photochemical renaissance driven by collective passion, creative resistance and artistic reinvention.

Drawing on film theory, literary modernism, psychology and art history, Fields of View elucidates an expanded network of connections between avant-garde film and wider culture. In this bold and original work, A.L. Rees identifies three key terms - 'field', 'frame' and 'interval' and charts their use by filmmakers and theorists such as Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, Bruce Baillie, Maya Deren, Malcolm Le Grice and Werner Nekes, from the 1920s through to the present day.