We, Lucas and I, are so saddened by the passing of Malcolm Le Grice. Our relationship with Malcolm starts back in 2008 when he visited Sydney and told Lucas he felt it was time to ‘hang up his boots’ on performing Horror Film 1.

Malcolm was aware of the work we had been doing with his London Film Makers’ Co-op colleague Guy Sherwin. The output of our work with Guy was (Wo)Man With Mirror a user’s manual, a fold out paper guide that steps the user through making a performance of Guy’s Man With Mirror. Malcolm’s Horror Film 1 has been seen by many people and as Malcolm has described it, it’s a crowd pleaser. He always programmed it last because he found that it was hard for works that followed it to make an impact.

Over the past several years, Lucas, me, our data science friend in France, Raja Appuswamy, and Malcolm and his son Oliver have spent lots of time on video calls, talking about the evolving manual for Horror Film 1. We have been so lucky to roadtest this while Malcolm has been about. Performances using the evolving manual have been created by Cinzia Nistico in Europe. There have also been some in Canberra. 

I refer to Chris Gosden quite often for his idea that objects gather people. By this he means those who are interested in particular material culture tend to find each other – for example, the display of eel traps in the museum will draw out the community who still make and use them. Our Horror Film 1 community has gathered together around transmitting the work, making sure it can go on without Malcolm. People who have been important, I believe, to Lucas and I in our Le Grice history endeavours have been, of course, David Curtis and Steven Ball. Others on this non-exhaustive list are Mike Leggett, Mark Williams and Mark Webber. My own view is that Mark Webber’s work in the 2000s was crucial to the visibility of these British film artists.

So fast forward to 2013, here you see Malcolm, Lucas, me and our families having dinner in Loddiswell near the Le Grices’ village in Devon.

Enthusiastic hospitality is a quality I associate with Malcolm. That’s also a quality Lucas and I hold dear, I believe. Some qualities of enthusiastic hospitality are getting really caught up in the work and wanting to share the experience of getting caught up in the work with others.  All this adds up to empowerment – participation is a political, and therefore, vital action. Making work is one way to participate but experiencing work, being part of its audience, is another. This is quite a generous way to think about work, it factors in a relationship with an audience or a viewer from the start. This evens out the power relationships in what I think are a productive way. 

We had the good fortune to get to know Malcolm when he was thinking about legacies and how to pass them along. Of course, we have been interested in that for some time so our relationship was positive in every way. And this has been helped along greatly by Oliver, Malcolm’s son.

And here we are having lunch with Judith and Malcolm at their home in Devon. Note the impromptu furnishing of hats for everyone and a glass of wine. 

So that’s enthusiastic hospitality.

The other quality I associate with Malcolm is radical sharing. In talking through how to pass Horror Film 1 on to others over 2022-24, it’s been crystal clear that the state Malcolm wants for his work is that it circulates. The words of Malcolm’s we’ve included in the Horror Film 1 instructions are these:

“I think of [Horror Film 1] like jazz. You can have a tune and when you start to play it and improvise on it, it’s something new and it belongs to you, the performer. It’s like a skeleton around which something can happen. And I’m not precious about the copyright of it. Once you’ve performed it, it belongs in the world, right? It belongs to the world.

And there’s also the fact that what I did was very random, really, and it was very influenced by all kinds of stuff in the situation. It wasn’t just me. William Raban, Gil Eatherly, Annabel [Nicolson], we were all working together, we were messing about doing stuff together. 

And also the Film Co-op itself [the London Film Makers’ Co-op] … something that’s very different, particular, about the London Film Co-op – [is that] people were not precious about ideas … The ideas were thrashed around, they were shared, they were inter-influenced …it’s a different sort of culture that is in a discourse like jazz and improvisation. It can change and things don’t belong quite simply to one person. For me my work is part of a public discourse really. I’m not precious about it, if somebody wants to preserve it and work on it or be influenced by it or modify it, change it.

…

I should do what I need to do [to write down instructions for the work or a letter to a future user as Louise put it] to make it possible for you but after that, it’s up to you, if you want to do something different with it … – I leave that to you, it’s not up to me.”

So now’s the time to share your Le Grices with audiences. If you have some, organise a screening. Paddy Hay at the Artist Film Workshop in Melbourne is going to do this in late Jan, using the NFSA’s Non-Theatrical Lending Collection. Berlin Horse (1970) is not available (why is that, we wonder) but Little Dog for Roger (1967), Witchurch Down (1972)and Blind White Duration (1967) are all on Paddy’s list. 

If you do make a screening, it would be kind to share what you do on the internet and make it findable. Be a bit of a librarian and use some hastags and include Malcolm’s name in the title. That way the Le Grice family can find what you do – I know they will be delighted to know about this activity. 

I’m hoping to do more with a recent work of Malcolm’s, Eye of the Dragon. The soundtrack is by his grandson Benjamin. This is a three screen work but it does have a single channel iteration – I showed that single channel work in Canberra in May 2024 to a warm response from our small but enthusiastic audience.

For me personally as a creative person, I felt quite connected to Malcolm. He was always making work – using his phone or his iPad or drawing. When we visited in 2013, he had been holidaying in Greece making iPad drawings. He’d also just made a new video work on his phone during a train trip with Mark Webber. Over this time 2022-24 when we’ve been talking regularly, he’s often showing us new images and of course, he shared Eye of the Dragon. The conjecture I put on this and that I connect to myself is that for some of us the day is not done without a new piece of art in it. Art might be the wrong word, but some sort of creative output.

The final thing I want to say about Malcolm was that he was capable across so many fields of endeavour – he didn’t just make work, he built the early developing equipment for the London Film Maker’s Co-op, literally timber rotating tanks (my favourite account is in Mark Webber’s Shoot Shoot Shoot published by Lux for the LFMC 50^th in 2016, check out Malcolm in his own words on page 104. This also explains Malcolm’s role in bringing into existence the LFMC as an organisation that did more than screenings). He also acquired the very important Debrie printer. Those who have experience in film preservation know how precious these printers are because they can cope with shrinkage and other kinds of damage. I did have a photo of the printer taken at Now.here in 2013 in London but can’t find that one. 

And alongside his creative and engineering feats, Malcolm was also a writer. Real TIME/SPACE (1972) is still an article Lucas and I refer to often. And many bookshelves of experimental film people have a copy of his compilation Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age (2001). It was also plain to Lucas and me that Malcolm is much loved by his family, we’ve learnt this from our time spent with his son Oliver. Thank you, Malcolm, for your generous art and your generous sharing. 

BIO

Louise explores the creative application of old media. Her art training is in film and time-based art. She makes moving image art using hand made and hand processed 16mm and super 8 film – video art and films used live in performance. She also uses pinhole photography and cyanotypes. Making images using photography links to Louise’s second training in archives and records. For Louise, film and photography is always a form of recording. 

Louise develops and shares much of her work in collaborations – re-enacting 1970s media art in the artist archivist collaboration Teaching and Learning Cinema and, over the years, collaborations in contemporary experimental music and dance. Recently, she has been working on creative community development in her suburb Kambah.

Louise finalised her PhD with the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra in 2021. She went on to teach archives, records and collections in Australian universities. Before her PhD, she spent a decade working in government information and archives in the Australian Government. These engagements flow from her work in media art specialising in obsolete technology. Live arts and archives run parallel in her career. The PhD ‘Tending the archive’ draws together art and archives, exploring how we keep things we can’t digitise effectively. The research used the case study of 1970s expanded cinema, drawing on work from her collaboration with Lucas Ihlein as Teaching and Learning Cinema.

As an archivist, Louise has worked for the Australian Government, setting policy and curating future archives. She held ongoing lecturer roles in collections, archives and records at Charles Sturt University (2020-2023) and Curtin University (2023-2025). As a consultant archivist Louise has conducted significance assessments on several landmark small arts collections. In live art, Louise performs with obsolete media such as 16mm and super 8mm film. She has collaborated with luminaries in Australian contemporary, classical and jazz music, in key venues and festivals in Australia and internationally. Louise’s films are in the collections of the region’s film archives. 

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Louise Curham Curriculum Vitae

lcurham@csu.edu.au

EDUCATION

Introduction to Environmental Accounting, non-award certificate course, Fenner School, Australian National University, June 2023

PhD Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra 2021

Graduate Diploma of Science (Information Services) (Archives & Records), Edith Cowan University, 2013

Graduate Certificate in Audio Visual Archiving, Charles Sturt University, 2006

Master of Fine Arts, Time Based Art, College of Fine Arts, University of New South, 2005

Managing Historical Documents certificate, School of History, University of NSW, 2002

Diploma of Visual Arts (Painting), Victoria University, Melbourne (in part), 1999

Bachelor of Arts, VCA School of Film & Television 1993

Media Skills certificate, Waikato Polytech, Hamilton, New Zealand, 1990

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

University of Wollongong, research associate on internal grant ‘Archiving Scenes, development on ASEAN Australia centre grant 2025, ARC LIEF grant 2026

Curtin University, lecturer in the discipline Libraries, Archives, Records and Information Science, teaching archives, records, leading and managing, knowledge organisation and metadata, digital preservation, Feb 2023 to Jul 2025

Charles Sturt University, lecturer in collections, archives, records and digital preservation, Oct 2020 to Feb 2023

University of Canberra, Faculty of Arts and Design, course convenor, Professional Media Projects, Semester 1 2018

University of Canberra, Faculty of Arts and Design, sessional tutor, Editing Sound and Image and Major Creative Projects, Semester 2 2018

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS/EMPLOYMENT

National Archives of Australia, Commonwealth Information Policy, assistant director, Canberra, 2016­–2019

National Archives of Australia, Government Information Assurance and Policy, Digital Strategy and Solutions, assistant director, Canberra, 2014–2016

National Archives of Australia, Government Information Management, Agency Accountability project officer, Canberra, 2009–2014

dLux Media Arts, Sydney, consulting archivist, preparation of significance assessment under National Library Community Heritage Grant, 2014

Performance Space, Sydney, consulting archivist, preparation of significance assessment under National Library Community Heritage Grant, 2010

Australian National Maritime Museum, records manager, Sydney, 2007–9

National Archives of Australia, Audiovisual Preservation project officer, Sydney, 2002–7

Auscape, natural history photographic library project officer, Sydney, 2000–2

Rehame, broadcast media monitor, Melbourne 1998–2000

Short film director 1996–7

Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, radio and television commercials producer 1994-6

PUBLICATIONS

Published conference proceedings

Curham, L., Ihlein, L., & Appuswamy, R. (2024). Re-enactment, Users Manuals and DNA Storage: Methods for media art preservation. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Art. Media Art Archiving Symposium, ISEA. https://airdrive.eventsair.com/eventsairseasiaprod/production-expertevents-public/0fa9f3be394a44dc865dc973d1d8b41c

Curham, L. (2016). Caring for live art that eludes digital preservation. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Digital Preservation (pp. 266–267). Bern, Switzerland: Swiss National Library

Review

Curham, L. (2017). Performing Digital Multiple Perspectives on a Living Archive. Archives and Manuscripts, 45(2), 167-169.

Book chapter

Curham, L & Gamble, R. (2008). ‘Moving Image’ and ‘Sound’. Keeping Archives (3rd ed.), Bettington et al (eds.) Australia: Australian Society of Archivists.

Refereed journal article

Ihlein, L., & Curham, L. (2015). Reaching Through To the Object: re-enacting Malcolm Le Grice’s Horror Film 1. Performance Matters, 1(1-2), 24–40.

SELECTED CONFERENCE ACTIVITY

The Wisdom Travels With the Object, Archives in the Digital Age symposium for the launch of the Kaldor Digital Archives, Art Gallery of NSW, Nov 2019.

Having Opinions in Digital Preservation. Australasia Preserves digital preservation community of practice on-line meeting, May 2019.

Tending the archive: ritual as preservation; enfolding preservation into use; and preservation as a community enabler through the case study of ‘(Wo)Man With Mirror’, a re-enactment of a 1970s artwork. Shock of the New, Australasian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials joint SIG symposium, Melbourne. Feb, 2017.

When the record performs. Australian Society of Archivists’ annual conference, Melbourne. Sep, 2017.

Observing the re-enactment. Scenes of the Real symposium, Department of Performance Studies, University of Sydney. July, 2016.

Tending the Archive. Australasian Association for the Digital Humanities conference, Hobart. June, 2016.

Re-enacting Expanded Cinema ‘Wo(Man) With Mirror’, presentation at Museum Futuresconference, Institute of Education, University College London, May 2013.

Re-Enacting Expanded Cinema: Three case studies, authors Louise Curham and Lucas Ihlein, at Re:live 09, Third International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology Melbourne 26-29 November 2009.

History Made Flesh – Re-enacting Expanded Cinema, authors Louise Curham and Lucas Ihlein, poster at the Association of Moving Image Archivists Conference, USA, 2004.

SELECTED AWARDS AND HONOURS

2016 University of Canberra Pitch for Funds winner

2015-17 Australian Postgraduate Award

2015 Australia Day Award National Archives of Australia for Check-up Digital

2013 Margaret Jennings Award, Australian Society of Archivists

SELECTED ARCHIVES COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTS

Performance Space archives, Sydney, pro bono involvement 2008-2013

Lu Rees Archives of Australian Children’s Literature foundation sub committee 2012-2014

Art CV

Education
PhD, Centre for Creative & Cultural Research, Faculty of Arts & Design, University of Canberra (2021)
Graduate Diploma Information Science (Archives & Records) Edith Cowan University 2010
Graduate Certificate Audiovisual Archiving, Charles Sturt University, 2005
Master of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney 2004
Bachelor Film & Television, VCA School of Film & Television, Melbourne 1993

Solo exhibitions
A Film of One’s Own [Archive Fever], PhotoAccess, Canberra, November 2015
A Film of One’s Own [Fugue Solos], Performance Space 2005, NZ Film Archive Media Gallery Wellington 2006, Te Manawa ART Palmerston North, NZ 2006
Floodgate (2006) College Gallery, QUT in the OtherFilm Festival, 2006
Moving Still Life Blackwood Gallery Melbourne 1999, UNSW Hutchison Gallery 2002, Kudos Gallery Sydney 2004
Herbaceous, NZ Film Archive Auckland, 2003

Selected group exhibitions
The Stand-in Lab with Lynn Loo, PhotoAccess Canberra 2019
Encyclopedia of Forgotten Things, Faculty Arts & Design Group Show, Belconnen Arts Centre, May 2016
Slowing Down Time, Belconnen Arts Centre 2015, Articulate Project Space, Sydney Mar 2014 & FCA Gallery, Wollongong Aug, 2014
Still Life | Moving Fragments, Belconnen Arts Centre; Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney 2012
Propositions and Game Plans, Melbourne International Arts Festival, 2007

Selected re-enactment events
Teaching & Learning Cinema expanded cinema re-enactment projects inc. Horror Film 1, CCAS June 2014; Hollow in the Paper, CAST, Hobart 2013; Unconscious Archives Salon, London 2013; The Parlour in 13 Rooms, Sydney April 2013; Imprint, Artspace Sydney, 2009; Performance Space, Sydney 2007.

As curator & convenor
Stand-in Lab events program in the Stand-in Lab exhibition, PhotoAccess Canberra 2019
Poetry Film screening in Poetry on the Move symposium, University of Canberra, Sep 2016
Teaching & Learning Cinema events 2006 ongoing. Highlights include Photochemical Games and 16mm from the ‘70s the films of artist Malcolm Le Grice at Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra 2013.

Selected performances
Yokohama Flowers with Erik Griswold, Brisbane 2019
In a Bone Way with Debra Di Centa, Dance on the Edge, Belconnen Arts Centre, 2018
Tracer film performance for prepared screen and haiku in You Are Here Festival, Canberra, April 2016 Room 40’s Open Frame with Chris Abrahams, Carriageworks Sydney, July 2015
The Film Remains the Same film performance in You Are Here Festival, Canberra 2014
Unconsious Archives at Café Oto, London, June 2013
SoundOut Festival, Canberra 2013, 2014
Melbourne International Arts Festival, Soak, with the Australian Art Orchestra, 2010
Jazz Visions Festival, Sound Lounge, Sydney, 2010
NZ International Film Festival, Frames Per Second A Film of One’s Own, Auckland, 2009
Waiting to Turn into Puzzles at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2008
Val Camonica Pieces, Victorian Arts Centre, 2007
OtherFilm annual festival, Brisbane 2006-8; NowNow annual exploratory music festival, Sydney, 2006-9

Residencies
Bundanon 2012; University of Wollongong artist-in-residence 2008; BankART 1929 Artists-in-studios residency Yokohama Japan 2007; Performance Space 2007; UNSW union artist-in-residence 2002

Filmography
Dance films: Knee Deep in Thin Air 1992; Fugue in Pursuit of Flight 1994; Slipped 1997;Doona Grrl, Transparent 2000 Other films: Johnny & Irenie 1993;The Princess & The Pea 2000; Tenho Saudades (with Peter Humble) 2004; Conimbla 2009