Figuring Space; considering the figure in the construction of space in materialist film is an analysis of film space that uses either the image of a figure or the actual figure of the viewer in its construction. The thesis focuses on particular screen works of William Raban, Guy Sherwin, Malcolm Le Grice, Chris Welsby, Nicky Hamlyn, Peter Gidal (all members of the London Filmmakers’ Cooperative) and the Canadian artist Michael Snow. It discusses the works in relation to the basic materials of time, light and sound found in film and video. The thesis looks at the way the film frame was implemented in the work of these artists to challenge preconceived notions of film space. It also highlights the uncertainty of spatial relativity within the screen image once the techniques imposed by the artist undermine previous determinations of positions in space. The frame provides necessary elements with which a reading of a pictorial space can be made. In addition, with some of the works discussed, the frame defines an exterior screen space that at times questions the boundaries between on-screen and off-screen, and fictive space and real space. While in other works that are addressed, binaries exist within which the boundaries of a picture plane are utilized to determine an object’s spatial relativity, which in turn questions the relativity of those boundaries that determine it. The frame that previously confirmed the illusions of space within the pictorial plane could no longer be prescribed as definitive. Calculations of the film space would become dependent upon a point of origin that is situated within actual time and space at the position of the viewer. The figure of paramount importance, when considering the constructs of space within materialist film, is that of the viewer