Imperfect Cinema

The voice of a British man narrates a film produced in the 1950’s describing the moment when Nairobi transitions from a small town into a city. This was made by the Colonial Film Unit (CFU); a mobile cinema outfit established by the British colonial government. Its task was to produce instructional or educational films that were also instrumental in spreading propaganda while presenting African audiences as passive & simple minded.

In an effort to counter-balance this depiction of progress, the dominant voice of the narrator is punctuated by machines at work and cattle and sheep roaming in present day Nairobi. The choice to not show footage of the film embraces refusal as a device that recognises a system that renders one illegible and unintelligible. Instead, the focus shifts towards image construction through weighing, measuring and searching for the image and thinking about the logistics involved in setting up an imperfect cinema. The studio becomes a support structure that gives an open exploratory quality to the work unlike the didactic tone of the films made by the CFU. This propels the work towards a future abstraction with new active audiences.

Throughout the search for the image, distance is warped and displacement occurs through reconfigured periscopes that reflect back the studio in distorted, illusionary and multi-dimensional ways. In the end, the image constructed remains elusive as an immeasurable volume and a weight whose balance cannot be determined nor reconciled with.

Installation components

• Two slide projectors + 35mm slides set to an automatic timer. Featuring stop-motion drawings of a rotating and falling wheel projected onto lithography limestone
• Cardboard box on the floor. The ghostly movement of the box is triggered each time after 24 slide projections
• Periscope prototypes mounted on the wall, floor and suspended from the ceiling
• Live-feed imagery from the room and inside the periscope using two camcorders connected to two monitors
• Motorized pulley system with weights & diagrams set to a programmed loop
• Audio from the archival film and field recordings
• Wooden studio chairs; one with large speaker hooked underneath feat. the sound of cowbells
• Cast iron kettle as sound amplifier feat. sound from the archival film
• 8hrs: Charcoal and graphite drawings rubbed against one studio wall

Video excerpt of the installation

This work was first presented at the Rijksakademie Open Studios: May 22-25 , 2025

All images courtesy of the artist

©Jackie Karuti