• Terry Flaxton
    • Latest releases & exhibitions
    • Resurrection (for Jean Cocteau)
    • Flaxton Retrospective October 2023
    • RWA, FRPS, academic
  • The Present & The Past
    • The Present and The Past
    • Vida 1976 - 1981
    • Transition 1981 - 1982
    • Early Broadcast work: Triple Vision & Videomakers 1982 - 1985
    • Triple Vision & Channel 4 1985 - 1992
    • A Trip Sideways to the BBC
    • Cinematography and Scripting 1992 - 2006
    • Academia and a developing Artistic Practice 2007 - 2016
    • 2015 & 2016 Cinefest Bristol International Festival of Cinematography
    • Sedition 2015 - Present >
      • Sedition 2015 - Larger
    • 2025 and beyond?
  • Artworks, Documentaries, Installations
    • Artworks, Documentaries, Installations
    • Longer Form Artworks
    • Installations 1992 - The Present >
      • Proposed Exhibition
    • Short works with a life of their own
    • Collaboration: Terry Flaxton Shawn Bell
    • Collaboration: Terry Flaxton Emily Burridge
    • Collaboration: Terry Flaxton Al Lethbridge
    • Documentaries 70s to 90s
    • Channel 4 - Moving Image Art Resources
    • Blink 2003 to 2012
    • Work on Racism 1976 - 2000
    • Short Dramas
    • Music Industry Work
    • Music and Sound 1969 - 1975
    • An Early History of Video Art in the UK
    • Theatre Work
    • The Cold War Game: The Soviet Union
  • Phd Home
    • Abstract >
      • Aims of the Critical Commentary
      • Introduction: practice as research as an investigative tool and methodology
      • Prologue: My Prior Development as an Industry Practitioner, Artist & Academic
    • Portfolio 1 Guide >
      • Critical Commentary on Portfolio 1
      • Portfolio 1 Complete list of outputs
    • Portfolio 2 Guide >
      • Critical Commentary on Portfolio 2
      • Portfolio 2 Complete list of outputs
    • Portfolio 3 Guide >
      • Critical Commentary on Portfolio 3
      • Portfolio 3 Complete list of outputs
    • Portfolio 4 Guide >
      • Critical Commentary on Portfolio 4
      • Portfolio 4 Complete list of outputs
    • Phd Conclusion >
      • Consolidated Bibliography of Works Referred to in the Critical Commentaries
      • Key Propositions from the Research Period
      • Complete List of Outputs
      • Extra Resources >
        • ​1. Context for Research from 1971 forwards
        • ​2. Emerging technologies in industry prior to the research period (2007)
        • ​3. High Resolution Research 2007 - 2010
        • 4. Higher Dynamic Range Research 2010 - 2016
        • 2016 Bristol International Festival of Cinematography Video Documentation >
          • Cinefest 2016 Trailer
        • 2015 Bristol International Festival of Cinematography Video Documentation
        • Research & Innovation >
          • Research Streams of CMIR 2013 - 2017
          • Higher Dynamic Range Laboratory
          • Higher Dynamic Range Research
          • Practice as Research >
            • Practice as Research
            • PhD Information
            • BLINK
            • UWE active in new feature film - DoP Geoff Boyle, Visiting Professor
            • AHRC Creative Research Fellowship >
              • Output One
              • Output Two
              • Output Three
              • Output Four
            • Short Works of Art >
              • Aperture
              • Zagorsk
              • One Second to Midnight
              • Autumn Dusk Cafe Scene
              • Les Petites Cartes Postales de Beijing
              • Water Table/The Power of the Sea
              • CMIR RWA KWMC Bursary winners
          • Artistic development and its relationship to the technologies of the Moving Image
          • Selling the Immaterial in a Material World >
            • Artists Marque
            • Harry Blain, Ex Haunch of Venison on s[edition]
            • How to Collect Immaterial and New Media Art
          • DataMontage
          • CML/CMIR Camera Tests
          • Moving Image Knowledge Exchange Network
          • Radical Film Network
          • Interactive Documentary, developing knowledge exchange forms & a reassessment of cultural value >
            • An experiment in online interactivity
          • DotMov Museum of Moving Image
          • Artists Moving Image Exchange Network - AMEN
          • The Future of Display Technology
          • The Photographic Image
          • CML UWE Camera and Lens Tests
          • Collected text resources
        • The Verbatim History of Digital Cinematography
        • Verbatim Interviews
        • The Verbatim History of the Aesthetics and Technologies of Analogue Video
        • A History of Video Art
        • Papers
        • Leonardo: New Utopias in Data Capitalism
        • The FIlms of Roberto Schaefer ASC, AIC at Encounters 2013
        • Professor Duncan Petrie on the structure of film training in the UK
        • An introduction to 'Resolution'
        • An Introduction to Motion Capture
        • Projection Mapping
        • Cinematographers Discuss Their Role
        • The Neurocinematics of FIlm: Hasson et al
        • RGB-Z Depth Capture in real time
        • News >
          • News
          • Past Events held by CMIR >
            • AMPS & CMIR Conference 2016
            • CMIR:ONE December 2015 CentreSpace Exhibition
            • John Hopkins, Father of British Independent Video
            • Bristol Festival of Cinematography September 2015
            • Bristol Radical Film Festival 2015: Commemorating the 1975 First Festival of Independent British Cinema
            • CMIR 'Lighting Faces' Masterclass with Geoff Boyle
            • Higher Dynamic Range Laboratory
            • Symposium at Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival, Aesthetics/Politics/Activism/Art: What is Radical Now?
            • 'VIENNA-BRISTOL-RIGA: A JOURNEY THROUGH RADICALISM' at Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival
            • Visual Activism(s): Tactics, Technologies and Styles
            • The Films of Ben Smithard BSC, Bargehouse June 2014
            • Bristol Radical Film Festival presents: Superlative TV and 'Equal Temperament' (2014)
            • One Artists Journey - 2014 May at the RWA
            • 2014 CML/CMIR Camera Tests
            • The Films of Roberto Schaefer at Encounters 2013
            • Professor Duncan Petrie on the structure of film training in the UK
            • The Stuart Hall Project 18th February
            • ISEA 2013
            • Community Filmmaking and Cultural Diversity
            • Bristol Radical Film Festival
            • Oxford Radical Forum
            • Bristol Radical Film Festival presents: Bristol Palestine Film Festival Warm-up
            • Bristol Radical Film Festival presents: Benefit Bonanza Solidarity Screening in association with Side by Side LGBT Festival in Russia
            • Past Events Further Back
        • The Future of Display Technology
        • CMIR ONE >
          • 18 Seconds
          • BOUNCE
          • 7 seconds
          • 4 seconds
        • BSC Expo Presentation: Terry Flaxton
        • Hotels and map CineFest
        • People & Affiliations >
          • People & Affiliations
          • Affiliate Academics from other Universities >
            • Professor Jane Arthurs, Middlesex University
            • Dr Sarah Atkinson, University of Brighton
            • Professor Amanda Beech, Dean, School of Critical Writing, CalArts
            • Dr Vince Briffa
            • Cathy Greenhalgh, Principle Lecturer, LCC
            • Professor Sean Cubitt, Goldsmiths
            • Professor Stefan Grandinetti, Stuttgart Media University
            • Dr Leon Gurevitch, Victoria University of Wellington
            • Andrew Demirjian, Specialist Professor, Monmouth University, New York
            • Roberta Friedman Associate Professor, Moving Image Montclair University
            • Professor Julia Knight, University of Sunderland
            • Dr, Lev Manovich Professor, The Graduate Center, City University New York
            • Dr Kayla Parker, Lecturer in Media Arts Plymouth University
            • Professor Stephen Partridge, University of Dundee
            • Professor Duncan Petrie, University of York
            • Dr Marc Price, University of Bristol
          • Affiliate Cinematographers & Filmmakers >
            • Renny Bartlett, Producer, Director, Screenwriter
            • Karel Bata
            • Geoff Boyle, FBKS, Visiting Professor
            • Sharon Calahan ASC
            • Catherine Goldschmidt
            • Jack Hayter
            • Dave Riddet
            • Roberto Schaefer ASC, AIC, Visiting Professor
            • Jonathan Smiles, Workflow Specialist
            • Ben Smithard BSC
            • David Stump ASC
          • Affiliate Academics from UWE >
            • Dr Judith Aston
            • Terryl Bacon
            • Liz Banks
            • Judith Bracegirdle
            • Professor John Cook
            • Dr Charlotte Crofts
            • Abigail Davies
            • Dr Josie Dolan
            • Professor Jon Dovey
            • Katrina Glitre
            • Dr John Hodgson
            • Dr James Jackman
            • Susan Mcmillan
            • Rachel Mills
            • Alistair Oldham
            • Dr Shawn Sobers
            • Dr Gillian Swanson, Associate Professor
            • Estella Tincknell, Associate Professor
            • Dr Sherryl Wilson
          • Affliate Research Groups >
            • Bristol Vision Institute, University of Bristol
            • Creative Media Research Group, ACE, UWE
            • Digital Cultures Research Centre
            • Film and Television Studies Research Group, UWE
          • Affiliate Cultural & Cinematic Organisations and Producers >
            • Aardman Animations
            • Afrika Eye/Zimmedia
            • Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival
            • IMAGO: European Federation of Cinematographers
            • Royal West of England Academy
            • Knowle West Media Centre
            • Watershed Media Centre, Bristol
          • Affiliate Independent Researchers & Artists >
            • Andrew Buchanan
            • Mark Cosgrove
            • Caroline Norbury, Visiting Professor, ACE, UWE
            • Peter Donebauer
            • Charlotte Humpston
            • Andrew Kelly, Visiting Professor, ACE, UWE
            • RIk Lander
            • Dr Ben Sherriff
            • Deborah Weinreb
            • Lucy Williams
        • Glow
        • United Digital Artists
  www.terryflaxton.com

Academia and a Developing Artistic Practice

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Flaxton gets his scroll to become an official Academician of the RWA
1: Vida                                    1976 - 1981
2: Transition                            1981 - 1982
3: Triple Vision/Videomakers  1982 - 1985
4: Triple Vision & Channel 4    1985 - 1992
5: A Trip Sideways to the BBC 1988 - 1990
6: Cinematography & Scripts   1992 - 2006
7 Academia                              2007 - 2016
8. CineFest                               2015 - 2016
9. Sedition Art                           2015 - 2023
10. Makersplace & NFT's         2019 - 2022
11. 2025 and Beyond?
During this period where I entered academia and prospered as an Academic,  I made many, many pieces of artwork which were positioned to research a certain set of issues concerning the now possible higher resolutions cameras were capable of - but centrally each work had an artistic purpose, which now that my academic phase is over, continue to make the works relevant. I should also note that come 2015 after Sedition Art had started and rung me to join the ranks of their curated artists, a lot of the works from this 10 year period are present for sale on their site. I begin the list of works to the right, some years earlier as my work was heading in the direction that academic research was going to take me into - significantly I was asked to make some installations for the 1993 Bonne Biennale (but didn't get through the financial process) a work called 'White Goods' which was to be a simulation of a room with a fridge, a white sofa, a dish washer, a dinner table with a white table cloth, a bed, a washing machine - upon which projections would have not only brought them to life but added a ciritcal turn to the work. A fridge holds commodities that have traversed the earth when in fact we have a lot of the things locally. The key work that came out of this was initially The Dinner Party and later became In Other People's Skins which ran at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York for several 6 month runs with around 1.2 million attending from 2010 onwards.

​In 2006 a friend said to me something akin to: Why not give up the struggle and take the Kings Shilling? I said why? He said, because the Arts Council has about 100 million and the Film Council the same - whereas the Research Councils had about 3 Billion. The change from 'M' to 'B' did the trick and I applied for an AHRC Creative Research Fellowship which I got and I was told be a variety of professors at University of Bristol that this was a high accolade as only about 3 were given each year.

I had been doing visiting lecturing since the mid 90's (notably at Duncan of Jordanstone with Steve Partridge as head of course - the job was to get the kids who were too often in the dark (literally)  out into the daylight. I understood both states and so was happy to do this and lectured at many places. Now I was to be a full time academic. I had written a variety of trade articles about analogue video, digital video and HD - and also in 99 as previously said marshalled in for Du Art labs in NY a film out from the very very new Sony HD camera (a mod which George Lucas was using) which swapped off luminance for resolution such thsat HD at that time was like shooting reversal film with zero tolerance of the wrong Fstop. The point is I knew what I was doing on all practical levels and was also forumating ideas about HD being 'a portal' through into an age beyond film (to where we are today). So my basic problem was to learn to write academically so that 'The Academy' could grasp what was happening. 
​
Fortunately I came a across a planetary dust cloud astrophysicist, Amara Grapps, who told me about the very important Wavelet Transform created by Fourier, which had only just become an operable tool to effectively power the incoming (though short) digital age. Previously Fouriers Discrete CoSine Transform had been used but fundamentally it was a 'meat grinder' of an algorithm and was not kind nor clever - whereas the Wavelet transform was both (and encoded echoes of todays so called AI back propagation - which simply means when the algorithm gets to the back end it checks with the beginning of the maths to keep it on target). AT this point most signal processing engineers will be squirming because that's a ridiculous description - but the main skill I have had in academia is being able to frame an idea for academics from what engineers tell me - so that both can carry on in the same room as if they understand eachother (in fact I used this technique when we were proving HDR and 3D without Binocular Stereoscopy (an anaglyph 3D effect is a form of stereoscopy that creates two distinct red and blue images to produce a single 3D stereo image).
I finished the AHRC fellowship, won a knowledge transfer fellowship and by 2013 I'd transferred Universities to become a Professor of Cinematography and Director of the Centre fro Moving Image Research. We had a variety of successes, ran two cinematography festivals and I was asked to come to LA to consult with AMPAS on HDR production and attended the ASC Cinematography Summit where I spoke in front of around 100 ASC members including Vitorrio Storarro who shot Apocalypse Now...  In 2015 I and a band of enthusiasts organised the First Bristol International Festival of Cinematography followed by a second Festival in 2016. The principle was to take the Arnolfini in Bristol which has a 200 seat auditorium and ask eminent cinematographers to come and speak about their craft - but also critically, to demonstrate that in a series of workshops taking place in front of the audience with a set of screens for the audience to see exactly what was being achieved in lighting - through the Camera: 


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​
NEXT: 8. CineFest   2015 - 2016 ​The Bristol International Festival of Cinematography.
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Click this link to see many of these works on the right on Sedition Art
The first piece in the list below was commissioned by Channel 4 and the Arts Council and screened on CHannel 4 and at the Tate. I mention it here because it developed through 1, to 3 pieces, to 7 piceces to 14 pieces, to 21 pieces to more than Ip;ve bothered to count...

1989 The Inevitability of Colour which became
The Colour Trilogy with the edition of 2) Echo's Revenge (1992), The Object of Desire (1992) which then became:
14 History Lessons, 18 Visions, 21 Beatitudes' and premiered at Salisbury Arts Center Autumn 2010 including Colour polyptych In My Own Footsteps, Part 1 (07), Part 2 (08) Part 3 (08) - Epilogue: Unreal Timepiece (05 - 08), Thr Eye Projects the World (05), TImepiece (05), Echo's Compassion, Echo's Gift (06) The Mystery at the Heart of Meaning (07) and finally became
1989 - 2018 Myth and Meaning in the Digital Age

1992 Zagorsk  4 minutes
1999 Skin Deep 25 minutes for HTV 
2002
Towards Aquarius 
2003 On This Day The Eternal Flame Of The Chimera Burns
Forever  
2 minutes 30 seconds
2003 Forever 22 minutes
2003 WINGS (1 Georgia, 2 Present Birthday, Frida)
2003 THE DINNER PARTY 
2004 DANCE FLOOR  (Standard Definition 1st Version)
2005 
The Garden Wonder, ITV 
​2006 The Birds
2006 The Bristol Harbourside Installations

The BBC Come Visit
Night on Perot's Bridge
The Dockers Window
​
Pero's Bridge Sound Installation
Footsteps
2006 Blink Title Sequence)
2006 One Second to Midnight (Russian version - followed by the Chinese version) 
2008 
In Other People's Skins 1st HD version
2008 The Unfurling      
2008 The American Dream
2008 
Autumn Dusk Cafe Scene
2008 The Sum of Hands 
2008 Dance Floor (HD Version)
2008 Un Tempo, Una Volta 
2008 Portraits of the Somerset Carnivals   
2008 Portraits of Cannaregio - Un Ritratti di Cannaregio  
2008  Portraits of Glastonbury Tor  
2008 The Dinner Party (HD Version)
2008  
In Re Ansel Adams
2009 One Second to Midnight Chinese Version 
2009 The Divine Being, Inscribed
2010 Three Plasma Portraits: A Moving Portrait of the Poet Elisabeth Beech     
2010 Self Portrait in the Digital Domain
2010 Mes Petits Cartes Postales des Beijing
2010 Portraits of the Flat Iron, New York  
2010 Portraits of the Arrow Tower, Beijing  
2010 Portraits of Shoreditch, London  
2010 Until I'm Gone 2010 - Set of 6 prints       
2010 Wood, Wave, Wetland, Moor
2010 The Elemental Wave      
2010 The Unfailing Landscape    
2010 James loves Sarah
2010 Glastonbury Tor   
2010 Smoke Piece    
2010 In Re Richard Long      
2010 Water Table (HD Version) 
2010  Portraits of the University of Bristol's Centenary
2010 - 2012 Monumental Portraits of the Working People of Somerset
2010/2012 In Other People's Skins 2nd HD Version
2012 - 2015 
The Intersection of Dreams (In Re Salvador Dali) Triptych
2012 - 2013  Kings Canyon  single screen 3D cinemontage
2013 'THE HUMAN CONDITION' 2013 world's Ist higher frame rate, HDR movie 
2013/2016
 Portraits of the Youth of Bristol
2014 Trees single screen 3D cinemontage 
 
2015 Reflection on Water 
2015 Tryptych Westhay Somerset single screen 3D cinemontage
2016 Triptych: Reimagining Venice 
2016 Triptych: Reimgaining Fuerteventura 
2017 Barcode Jesus in a Material World 
2017 Landscape Tryptich, Kings Canyon, Westhay, Fuerteventura)
2017 Line Dance for Norman McLaren – available on Sedition 
2017Stained Glass Nature – available on Sedition 
2017 Cathedral Steps (after Max Escher) – available on Sedition 
2017 Drawings and Inscriptions – available on Sedition 
2017 The Divine Being, Inscribed – available on Sedition 
2017 Portraits of New York – available on Sedition 2014/2017
2018 'TO STAND AND STARE A SOMERSET LANDSCAP'E - with Charlotte Humpston, Josh Randall, 72 minutes 
2018 SIgns and Symbols of the Human COndition
2019 
Arabesque: The consciousness of the Least of all the Species, The consciousness of the Least of all the Species,  The Consciousness of Trees
2018 Drawing, Inscription, Abstraction
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New Retrospective:​ Terry Flaxton: A Life in Video Art
​
Roseberry Road Studios
​Preview 6th October (6pm - 11pm)
Then showing Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 11am until 5pm through to 5th November
28 Roseberry Rd, Bath BA2 3DX 
Upcoming Exhibitions in 2024
- UK RWA Open Bristol September - December
- Australia, Adelaide July, A Life in Video Art, Retrospective, July
- Sedition International, Online Release, Un Tempo Una Volta, April
- Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello & Palazzo Bembo, Exhibition titled Visions, Venice, March

​
Between 2008 ​and 2023 Terry exhibited work in the China, USA, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Korea, Portugal, Iran, Turkey, Slovenia, Sweden, France, Norway, Malta, Madeira and the UK - some of these countries many times. A complete list of Exhibitions between 2008 and 2023 follows beneath the section on exhibitions beneath 1978 and 2007.
EXHIBITIONS Between 1978 onwards
​

In 1978, the Fashion show, (made in 1977) was exhibited at the Long Beach Museum by Kathy Rae Huffman, (curator of moving image work). Next came the Fourth Tokyo Video Festival where Flaxton, Cooper and Dedman's piece (written by Flaxton) Talking Heads, won a prize. From then on Flaxton's work was shown at many festivals, notably the Worldwide Video Festival in Den Haag, Netherlands, but many, many other places including Moscow, Tokyo, Algiers, San Francisco, Locarno, Montbeliard, Paris, Milan, Rome, Seoul, Amsterdam - and many other places around the world. In 1986 the British Film Institute as well as Channel 4 asked Flaxton to Shoot “Out off Order” the 3rd electronically produced and released on 35mm ‘film’ in history (after “Harlow” starring Ginger Rogers, 1965 and 200 Hotels, 1972). Though travelling as a cinematographer and occasionally exhibiting between 1992 and 1998 there was a hiatus in Flaxton's work between Zagorsk (1992 and Skin Deep (1999) Flaxton in fact worked on many artists pieces and brought a high level of lighting to many people's work.

Having come across HD in 1990, between 2000 and 2007 Flaxton concentrated on HD as a developing production form and tested cameras for Panasonic and Sony and by 1999 he had shot an HD work in the US which was mastered as a 35mm output at Du Art Labs in New York - and from then on spoke at many seminars including the NFT to speak about the transition form Standard Definition (720 x 576 pixels) to the then low level HD Standards of 1280 x 720, the faux HD of 1440 x  1920 and finally the full 1920 x 1080 standard that we all know today (2023). So in eventually entering academia in 2007 with an AHRC Creative Research Fellowship - where the candidates charge was to discover how technical and creative innovations feed upon each other, Flaxton then began a second wave of production as an artist - where, having spent many years on moving camera cranes and dollies - Flaxton chose to use HD and the camera itself as a window, a portal on, not only the world - but importantly on the very thing that looks: the self. By 2015 Sedition Art had arrived and was a perfect fit for what Flaxton later called his 'Chamber Works’. Flaxton also began producing long form moving image artworks during this period characterised by “Myth and Meaning in the Digital Age” (began in 1992 and finished in 2018) , “To Sand and Stare: A Somerset Landscape” (2011 to 2018) and latterly “Mexico: Landscape of the Heart” (2023).