Experimental Cinema examines a range of structures, systems and strategies that film and video artists have developed in works spanning the late 1960s to the present, often in response to the changing technology and medium of cinema. Several chapters also consider the affinities that artists' films and videos share with aspects of painting, sculpture and music.

Simon Payne argues that the evolution of methodical strategies in experimental cinema go back to the first avant-garde films that were made a century ago, in the 1920s. He shows how key figures internationally have formed part of the picture since then, but suggests that the most thorough formal exploration of cinema can be credited to a generation of artists that began making films in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s.

Payne analyses the work of numerous influential artists including Peter Gidal, David Hall, Malcolm Le Grice, Annabel Nicolson, Jayne Parker and Guy Sherwin. He discusses recent and lesser-known works as well as canonical films, videos and expanded cinema. Crucially, he also pays close attention to a range of younger artists including Jenny Baines, Neil Henderson, Jennifer Nightingale and Samantha Rebello. Experimental Cinema traces a unique and influential lineage that has defined some of the central preoccupations of artists' film and video, which continue to test our expectations of cinema, television and the moving image.