The starting point for Lucy Skaer's Film For An Abandoned Projector, commissioned by Pavilion, was her discovery that the Kalee projector was manufactured in Leeds in the early part of the twentieth century. It became her ambition to site the Pavilion commission in a disused cinema that had the locally made projectors in situ. A pair of Kalee 20s, manufactured 1947-1953, were found in The Lyric on Tong Road, Armley. The Lyric was built as a silent picture house in 1922 and continued to function as a cinema until 1988. The screen, seats and plasterwork were removed from the amphitheatre converting it into a warehouse space. The building is currently used as a church.
Throughout the summer of 2011, steps were taken towards the reinstatement of the silent picture house. The projectors have been restored by Allan Foster, Head Projectionist at Hyde Park Picture House, who worked at the Lyric 1979-1988. Since the cinema’s closure a stud wall has been erected across the balcony and it was necessary to cut through this in order to release the projection into the amphitheatre. A screen has been installed to fit the projection and the proscenium arch. The Lyric neon sign has been restored to signal public screening times.
Film For An Abandoned Projector was produced on a restored Arri IIc c. 1975 and edited on a Steenbeck 35mm cutting table by Skaer herself. The film is short and silent, shifting from black and white to colour, it plays on a loop. It is a continuous flow of images alternating between the inside of the cinema and other realms: tall ships, rocks and minerals and peach picking. Skaer describes the film as the imagined subconscious of the projectors. Through continuous play the film will gradually erode becoming increasingly marked and flecked in time. The film is specific to the projectors and will not be seen outside of The Lyric. In this work Skaer further explores her interest in the relationship between sculpture and film; between the machine and the resulting psychological space created by it. She was inspired to develop the project when she learned that Leeds was the primary producer of cinema projection equipment in the mid twentieth century. Through its neglect, this precision optical instrument has slipped from the mainstream to become marginal, allowing different images and agendas to inhabit this usually commercial format.
Listen to art historian Briony Fer discuss Film for an abandoned projector: http://www.pavilion.org.uk/public/public_html/brionyfer_pavilion_3november2011.mp3