Lynsey Martin’s formalism: the original, the copy and the clone

Lynsey Martin’s Australian experimental film practice first registered publically in the early 70s. His 16mm films incorporate the use of collage, the grain of the photographic image and its erasure, hand-painting and inscribing imagery directly on the film surface. Martin deals with the material elements of the filmstrip and its design, the nature of filmic movement and the act of looking in public and private space. His films deal with abstraction, chance, the deconstruction of film language, the diary film and found footage to deliver process as content. This essay surveys his practice, places it in a historical context and argues that these films, though often marked as formalist, reveal a consideration for the marginal and invisible events impacting everyday life.