Als erstes wurde der Begriff von Sheldon Renan (in seinem Buch The underground film von 1967) und Gene Youngblood (in seinem Buch Expanded Cinema von 1970) verwendet:

Sheldon Renan (1967): “Expanded Cinema is not the name of a particular style of film-making. It is a name for a spirit of inquiry that is leading in many different directions. It is expanded cinema to include many different projectors in the showing of one work […] to include computer-generated images and the electronic manipulation of images on television […] cinema expanded to the point at which the effect of film may be produced without the use of film at all.”

Gene Youngblood (1970): „When we say expanded cinema we actually mean expanded consciousness. Expanded cinema does not mean computer films, video phosphors, atomic light, or spherical projections. Expanded cinema isn’t a movie at all: like life’s a process of becoming, man’s ongoing historical drive to manifest his consciousness outside of his mind, in front of his eyes.”