[1] The term was first defined by cultural historian Jeffrey Sconce, who described paracinema as 'an extremely elastic textual category'.
[2] Paracinema denotes an opposition to mainstream that, unlike other cult genres, specifically attacks the "reigning notions of 'quality'.
It consisted simply of an empty artists' space lit over a 24-hour period by sunlight during the day and electric light at night.
Tony Conrad's Yellow Movies (1972–1975), rectangular pieces of paper coated with house paint and allowed to turn yellow from exposure over many years, are yet another example of film makers' investigation of the fundamental properties and effects of cinema outside the physical boundaries of the film medium.
In many cases, "paracinematic" works came out of a sense among radical filmmakers that the film medium posed overly restrictive and unnecessary constraints (e.g. material and economic limitations) on their search for new kinds of cinematic experience.