Melanie Roger Gallery in association with the Audio Foundation presents the publication launch of "Cinemal: The Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film" by Tessa Laird. Published by University of Minnesota Press, the publication is a foray through the wilds where experimental films and animals collide.

Like the flash of a tropical bird’s iridescent wing, cinema can be furtive and intensely beautiful—and it can leave a viewer craving more. Cinemal is Tessa Laird’s passionate inquiry into the ways that films mimic the majesty, mystery, and movements of animals,her field notes from countless hair-raising encounters with films in their natural habitat. 

Part of a growing focus on nonhuman animals in film, Cinemal ventures to the “furry underbelly” of global experimental film practice, focusing on films from New Zealand, Australia, and South America. Laird examines how animals are depicted in film and analyzes the various animal qualities of cinema, like scratching and sniffing, vibrant colors, and voices (barking, howling, or echolocation). Burrowing into the work of filmmakers such as Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, Sriwhana Spong, and Ana Vaz, Laird’s energetic prose embodies the films she discusses, seamlessly combining personal anecdotes with art theory and philosophy to spread a wide sensory buffet. 

Lively and optimistic, Laird uses cinematic animal tropes to encourage readers to rethink what it means to be human. She argues that, in a time of ecological collapse, such an impulse is a necessary means of imagining other, healthier ways of being in this world. Connecting us with the more-than-human, Cinemal lures us toward the beastly becomings of film and, ultimately, our own animal natures.

Tessa Laird is an artist, writer, and senior lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Her books include a fictocritical exploration of color, A Rainbow Reader, and a cultural history of bats, Bat, in Reaktion Books’s celebrated Animal series.

This event will include a special screening of films by Nova Paul, Corinne and Arthur Cantrill, Sriwhana Spong, Tina Stefanou, and Peter Waples-Crowe with Glynn Urquhart, featuring a live soundtrack by Phil Dadson. 

Friday, 3 October 2025
6pm
Audio Foundation
4 Poynton Tce, Newton

"Cinemal" will be launched by Nova Paul, and Eu Jin Chua. 

Books will be available for purchase ($35 - cash preferred) and there will be light refreshments provided. Doors open at 5.30, formal proceedings begin at 6pm, and the film screening will run from approximately 6.30 - 7.45pm.

FILMS:

Nova Paul, This is Not Dying, 2010, 16mm colour separation transferred to digital video, 20 mins. (main image)

Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, with Ivor Cantrill, Myself When 14, 16mm rotoscoped film, transferred to digital video, 19 minutes.

Tina Stefanou, You Can’t See Speed, 2025, 8mm, 16mm, digital video, transferred to digital video, 17:39 mins.

Sriwhana Spong, Vague Dog, 2024, 16mm transferred to digital video, HD video, 11 mins.

Peter Waples-Crowe with Glynn Urquhart, Budjerri Dyillagami: Peggeralin (Welcome to the mountains: Dreaming), 2019, digital animation, 2mins.