The history and scope of experimental or avant-garde cinema has been closely tied to, but also significantly separate from, the practices of the art world, on one hand, and commercial Hollywood filmmaking, on the other. Situated between these two poles, it has developed into many distinct and overlapping cultures characterized by artisanal modes of filmmaking, independent theatrical and distribution channels, auxiliary print and screening practices, and often highly charged debates concerning medium specificity, aesthetics, and politics. This course maps the multiple spaces in which experimental film has flourished, from the underground bohemia of downtown New York City and the rural isolation of Stan Brakhage’s Colorado outpost, to the “minor” and “minority” cinemas that sprung up on the outskirts of Hollywood and the found footage experiments of contemporary artists in Vienna. Additionally the course examines notions of space as articulated in experimental film and media, including city symphonies, landscape film, expanded cinema, and modes of ethnographic encounter. In each of the course’s many sites of articulation, we will pay close attention to the avant-garde’s impulse to locate, in film, video, and digital media, spaces of political resistance, personal expression, and aesthetic possibility. [Tracks M, S]