Handmade Emulsion workshop with Alex MacKenzie

Handmade Emulsion:
Creating Black and White Film Stock From Scratch

Workshop with Alex MacKenzie

Enrolment limit: 5

Pre-registration is required.
Register by phone with a credit card (416.588.6444)
or in person with cash/debit/credit at LIFT during office hours (Monday – Friday, 10am – 6pm).

Handmade Emulsion:
Creating Black and White Film Stock From Scratch

Workshop with Alex MacKenzie

Enrolment limit: 5

Pre-registration is required.
Register by phone with a credit card (416.588.6444)
or in person with cash/debit/credit at LIFT during office hours (Monday – Friday, 10am – 6pm).

The alchemical nature and serendipity of the handmade image are explored in this immersive how-to of hand-brewed emulsion. In this workshop a simple, raw, and extremely low ISO black and white film stock suitable for contact printing will be created, using three key ingredients in the production of a silver based emulsion: gelatin, potassium bromide, and silver nitrate. A basic chemistry lesson will be provided to introduce the essential make-up of film emulsion, followed by a discussion of technique including a contextual screening of examples, and the creation of the emulsion in a darkroom. The mixture is then literally painted on to clear transparent acetate, followed by contact printing a filmstrip onto the raw stock, hand processing, and assessing the results. The workshop is aimed at both experienced practitioners and beginners, and includes all film stock, chemistry, and supplies. It is also recommended that you bring small objects of 16mm width or less for photogramming onto the filmstrips and/or filmstrips.

No prior experience is necessary.

Instructor:
Alex MacKenzie is an experimental film artist working primarily with relic analog film equipment and hand processed imagery. He creates works of expanded cinema, light projection installation, and projector performance. His work has been presented at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the EXiS Experimental Film Festival in Seoul, Lightcone in Paris, Kino Arsenal in Berlin, the Vancouver Art Gallery and others. He has presented workshops and lectures at the Concordia University Graduate Studies Program, Simon Fraser University, York University, Mount Allison University, No.w.here in London, Atelier MTK in France, and elsewhere. Alex was the founder and curator of the Edison Electric Gallery of Moving Images, the Blinding Light!! Cinema and the Vancouver Underground Film Festival. He was an artist in residence at Atelier MTK in Grenobles, France and Struts Gallery/Faucet Media in New Brunswick. Alex co-edited Damp: Contemporary Vancouver Media Art (Anvil Press 2008), and interviewed David Rimmer for Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker: David Rimmer’s Moving Images (Anvil Press 2009).

LIFT will also be co-presenting a screening of MacKenzie’s films with Pleasure Dome. The screening will take place on Friday May 31, 2013 at CineCycle.

Saturday 1 June 2013 –

Non-members: $115.00
Members: $95.00

Location:
 
1137 Dupont Street 
Toronto ON Canada