SURFACE TENSION

William Raban was born in 1948 and studied painting at St Martin’s School of Art. He has made over 50 films. Initially known for his landscape films and expanded cinema of the 1970s, Raban shifted his interest in landscape towards a more historical and socio-political context in the 1980s, focusing on the history of London and the Thames. Raban’s films from the 1990s onwards look at the island of Britain and its people in the context of the global economy and the effects of urban change. His reflections on his practice, William Raban's Nautical Twilight, were published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2025. He lives and works in London and is Professor Emeritus at the University of the Arts London.

a programme curated by Federico Rossin and Rinaldo Censi

Thoughts on Composition
Is it just my own whim to imagine that the filmography of William Raban, his oeuvre, could be divided into three sections, akin to Leon Battista Alberti’s treatise on painting (De Pictura, 1540)? Or, at least, a moving and impertinent replica? Rudimenta, Pictura, Pictor. Raban’s filmography, and the programmes we are screening, expound the problems of composition, acting as a kind of handbook, an instruction manual for future filmmakers. How do you make a film? You start from its framework. The elements that make it up. “Structure” is key. By this, we mean the “structural” films that Raban made in the 1970s – analysing and breaking down the cinema machine: dissecting it, piece by piece, thus reflecting on the cinematic device, the geometrical gaze, its modulation in time, and the quality of its colours. I am looking right now at the diagram of Raban’s film Angles of Incidence (1973): a set of straight lines departing from one point in a window and radiating by degrees; tiny units circumscribing a semi-circular arc in space. Or Broadwalk (1972): a path in Regent’s Park is deconstructed over time and then made to blow up visually, or rather, optically, by way of refilming. This latter practice modulates the temporal rhythm and material texture, incorporating the flickering. “The experience of making Broadwalk led me to investigate the reflexive possibilities for making a film that had no extraneous picture content other than the basic elements of the cinematic apparatus: the picture gate and projector shutter,” the director recalls in William Raban’s Nautical Twilight. Fifty Years an Artist Filmmaker (2025). Reflexive possibilities are regulated by neat spatial, geometrical, and temporal choices, as in Time Stepping (1974). How to expand or contract a double pan shot focused on the stairs of two adjacent buildings, modulating it temporally and structuring it horizontally and vertically?
Over time, the bare bones of William Raban’s cinema have fleshed out. The narrative (story), which used to be minimal in his works of the ‘70s, has developed luxuriantly and organically. Once single analyses, individual sites, fragments of space-landscapes, his films have evolved to larger constructions. They have expanded to become the filmed records of entire geographical areas. I am thinking of the magnificent film about the Thames and its course (Thames Film, 1986). Then there is his meditation on East London, where Raban has lived for five decades (the trilogy Sundial, A13, Island Race): these films are a great lesson on the urban transformation of the city and those places. Skyscrapers, docks, bulldozers, highways, car flow, river flow, fish markets, demolished buildings, street protests, sports races, grazing sheep: films that incorporate historical and architectural materials as well as sociological and political reflections.
Dot, line, surface. It was necessary to depart from this simple tripartition of the construction material. William Raban’s films have achieved surprising success over the years with their analysis and composition, and the combination possibilities. Hence, the paradox: comprehending and assimilating “structure” on a deep level has allowed Raban, in later years, to become mobile and to film; to juxtapose shots with the same precision; but also to attain an extraordinary freedom of movement – a kind of flexibility mixed with awareness. Something reminiscent of Vertov. Raban is a cine-eye.
Rinaldo Censi

LAKI HAZE, 2020
AVAILABLE LIGHT, 2016
LONDON REPUBLIC, 2016
72-82, 2014
TIME AND THE WAVE, 2013
THE HOUSELESS SHADOW, 2011
ABOUT NOW MMX, 2010
4’22”, 2008
TAKE MEASURE, 2008
AYSHE'S TALE, 2007
CONTINENTAL DRIFT, 2005
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, 2004
MM, 2002
FIRESTATION, 2000
BEATING the BRIDGES, 1998
CONFESSIONS, 1997
RIGHTS OF PASSAGE, 1997
ISLAND RACE, 1996
A 13, 1994
SUNDIAL, 1992
FROM 60 DEGREES NORTH, coregia/co-dir. Begonia Tamarit, 1991
THAMES FILM, 1986
A PICTURE OF GRAVING DOCK, 1982
BLACK & SILVER, co-dir. Marilyn Raban, 1981
WAVE FORMATIONS, 5-screen, 1978
AUTUMN SCENES, 1978
THAMES BARRIER, 3-screen 1977
ILLUSIONISTS, co-regia/co-dir. Marilyn Raban, 1977
SURFACE TENSION, 2-screen, 1976
CANAL INCIDENT, 2-screen, 1975
MOONSHINE, 2-screen, 1975
AFTER EIGHT, 1975
SUNSET STRIPS, 1975
AT ONE, 16mm, 1974
TIME STEPPING, 1974
BREATH, 1974
TAKE MEASURE, 1973,
ANGLES OF INCIDENCE, 2-screen, 1973
FILMAKTION, 1973
DIAGONAL, 3-screen, 1973
2’ 45”, 1973
IN THE MANNER OF SILENTS, 1972
BROADWALK, 1972
COLOURS OF THIS TIME, 1972
RIVER YAR, co-regia/co-dir. Chris Welsby, 2-screen, 16mm, 1972
VIEW, 1970
SKY FILM co-regia/co-dir. John-Barry, 2-screen, 1970
BASEMENT WINDOW, 1969
TREE PRINTS, 1969-70

Installazioni
TIME AND THE WAVE, anteprima/premiered at Mercosul Bienial, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2013
THE HOUSELESS SHADOW, anteprima/premiered at Museum of London, 2012
ABOUT NOW MMX, anteprima/premiered at Helsinki Photo Biennale, 2012
DUCHAMP’S DISSENT, 3-screen, anteprima/premiered at Tate Modern Tanks, 2012
CONTINENTAL DRIFT, anteprima/premiered at Roland Levinsky Gallery, Plymouth, 2008
SOUTH FORELAND, 2-screen, anteprima/premiered at Box Gallery, Ostende, 2007
AFTER DUCHAMP, 3-screen, anteprima/premiered at 291 Gallery, London, 2003
WAVE FORMATIONS, 5-screen, anteprima/premiered at Documenta 6 Kassel, Germany, 1977
PINK TROUSERS, 4-screen, anteprima/premiered at Acme Gallery, London, 1976
MOONSHINE, 6-screen, anteprima/premiered at Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, 1976