WORMGEAR is an expanded cinema project by -> Tim Shaw and Yannick Mosimann that treats analogue film projection as a live performance process. Using multiple 16mm projectors, DIY sound objects and light-to-sound transformations, the work is built around unstable visual and sonic patterns shaped in real time by flickering light, chemical residue, and mechanical malfunction.
Through live performance, WORMGEAR activates technological systems that are usually hidden, exposing projection, signal, and playback as performative actions. Filmmaking is approached not as a fixed workflow but as a dynamic, hands-on process whose internal mechanics can be revealed, disrupted, and reconfigured live.The 16mm film material is chemically altered using everyday substances such as oil, honey, sea salt, and vinegar. These cameraless chemigram loops are not fixed images but evolving surfaces, continuously reshaped through experimental development, repeated projection and failures within the projector itself.
Sound is generated directly from the technological system. Optical sound emerges from chemical traces on the film loops, while DIY microphones attached to the projectors amplify mechanical rhythms and vibrations. Flickering lights activate optical sensors, creating feedback between light, sound, and machine behaviour. Together, these elements form a tightly connected audiovisual system in which projection, signal, and material decay are performed live, revealing cinema’s hidden processes as both image and sound.