Close-Up and LUX are proud to present a special screening in memory of the late-great Tony Conrad on what would have been his 80th Birthday, with a rare screening of three of his 16mm films – including his classic stroboscopic film The Flicker – alongside Jack Smith’s Scotch Tape.

"Tony Conrad (1940-2016) was an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. In 1966 he made his first film The Flicker which is regarded as a landmark in structural film making. The film consists of alternating positive and negative film stock, producing a black and white flicker effect when projected. He approached the film by considering the relationship between the subjective psychological conditions of the flicker, and its relation to narrative and storytelling. He says, "I had felt that my own experience with flicker was a transporting experience in the way that movies affect the imagination at their best by sweeping one away from reality into a completely different psychic environment." – Tate

Programme:

• Scotch Tape, Jack Smith, 1959-1962, 3 min, 16mm
• The Flicker, Tony Conrad, 1966, 30 min, 16mm
• Straight and Narrow, Beverly Conrad & Tony Conrad, 1970, 10 min, 16mm
• Film Feedback, Tony Conrad, 1974, 14 min, 16mm