Storytelling, Exhibition Spaces and Site-Specific Screenings

This paper explores a line of inquiry situated at the intersections of cinema-as-event, film exhibition and storytelling. Specifically, it asks how can site-specific screenings contribute to the telling of an on-screen story while simultaneously contributing to another that belongs to the landscape upon which the screen sits.

Surveying recent screening events in non-traditional (often outdoor) exhibition spaces in the UK, the paper first considers how technological developments within the area of digitalised projection have contributed to the surge of independent companies offering cinema experiences in alternative spaces, giving rise to the notion of ‘immersive’ or ‘live’ cinema experiences. The paper then goes on to consider how these experiences enhance the film’s audio-visual storytelling often by having the natural surrounds (including the soundscape) blend with the film’s mise-en-scène. In this way, certain exhibition spaces can be seen as an additional, ‘beyond-the-frame’ communicative tool for cinema.

However, the paper also questions how the term 'site-specific' has been unproblematically applied to many of these screening events and considers how it may be useful to revisit and unpick this complex term in order to better understand how exhibition spaces contribute to the stories being told both on and off screen.