On the 18th and 19th of November I presented two programmes at the 6th edition of the Independent Film Show, organized by Rafaella Morra. The screenings were in the Fondazione Morra, in the Palazzo Spagnuolo, in Naples.

Here the programme listings and my introductory text:

A Brighter Future, Abstract Film and Utopia 1925-1975

programme 1:

Germaine Dulac – Thème et Variations (16mm, 9′, 1928)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy – Lichtspiel Schwarz-Weiss-Grau (Germany, 16mm, b/w, silent, 6′, 1930)
Oskar Fischinger – Allegretto (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 3′, 1936)
John Whitney – Celery Stalks at Midnight (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 3′, 1952)
Hy Hirsh – Gyromorphosis (France, 16mm, colour, sound, 7′, 1956)
Nicholas Schöffer – Kyldex Condensé (France, 16mm, colour, sound, 3′, 1973)
Jud Yalkut – Us Down By The Riverside (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 3′, 1966)
Jim Davis – Impulses (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 10′, 1958)
James Whitney – Lapis (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 10′, 1963-66)
John Stehura – Cibernetik 5.3 (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 8′, 1961-65)
Livinus van de Bundt – Moiré (Netherlands, video, colour, sound, 6′, 1975)
Steina & Woody Vasulka – Reminiscence (USA, video, colour, sound, 5′, 1974)

total: 70 min.

programme 2:

David Lebrun – The Hog Farm Movie (excerpt) (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 14′, 1970)
Pat O’Neill – 7362 (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 6′, 1965-67)
Chas Wyndham – Airborn (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 2′, 1968?)
Scott Bartlett – OffOn (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 10′, 1968)
Tom Ditto – The Leap (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 8′, 1968)
Stan Vanderbeek – Poemfield #5:Free Fall (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 7′, 1971)
Steven Beck – Union (USA, video, colour, sound, 9′ 1975)
Jordan Belson – Allures (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 7′, 1961)
Oskar Fischinger – R1, Ein Formspiel (Germany, 16mm, b/w/colour, silent, 7′ 1927)
Oskar Fischinger – Radio Dynamics (USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 4′, 1943)

total: 74 min.

still of “Gyromorphosis”:

The history of abstract film and light art is the history of an intersection between the world of machines and the world of the spirit. The makers of the first abstract films ever made (films which are now lost), the futurist painters Arnoldo Ginna and Bruno Corra, became interested in light because of their interest in theosophic philosophy. Around 1910 they did a series of practical experiments with coloured light bulbs, but finally turned to the film projector as the most sophisticated means available to them for articulating light. With their evolution from visionary inspiration to new technology, they set a pattern that was indepently repeated by many filmmakers all the way through the 20th century.
The utopic dimension of abstract films manifests itself through two concepts which emerge again and again in the thoughts expressed by abstract filmmakers regarding their work: one one hand the idea of abstract film as a form of communication which is more complete than previous forms of communication, and on the other hand the idea of abstract imagery representing a new kind of space that could once become inhabitable. Both ideas are decidedly uncynical and share the point of departure that artists have a contribution to make to the wellbeing of mankind.

In the first half of the twentieth century, artist and Bauhaus teacher Laszlo Moholy-Nagy had very clear ideas about the role of the artist as a generalist by profession; In Moholy’s view the greatest danger of modern society is the emotional imbalance created by a culture of narrow specialists and technocrats, applying modern insights with modern tools, but mentally and ideologically still in the nineteenth century. For Moholy-Nagy this was the root cause of two world wars. Artists have a crucial role in redressing such imbalances: they are able through their works to ‘humanize’ modern scientific concepts and pick up the more general truths behind them. In their works they make these concepts directly accessible to sensory understanding and thus assimilate them into civilization. For Moholy-Nagy the biggest event of the twentieth century was the emergence of a ‘new space conception’, permeating not only architecture but all the arts, a new kind of space not based on static hierarchy but on interconnectedness and movement. He made his film ‘Lichtspiel Schwarz-Weiss-Grau’ as a reflection of this idea, by filming the light patterns produced by his ‘Light-Space-Modulator’. This was one of the first kinetic sculptures and an icon for the new space and time.
The most literal vision of a new inhabitable space in this programme is without doubt the film ‘Gyromorphosis’ by Hy Hirsh. It is based on a sculpture from the ‘New Babylon’ project by the dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys. From 1956 to 1974 Constant was presenting blueprints, texts and scale models for his visionary, global city, where the ‘Homo Ludens’ of the future would live as a new kind of nomad, free from material wants and possessions, no longer bound to fixed locations or fixed relationships with either family or tribe. Mankind would live in an ever-evolving environment, interacting with constantly changing constellations of people and fulfilling life through play. Similarly visionary projects for the future were developed by Nicholas Schöffer, who around 1948 abandoned traditional painting and sculpture out of disgust with the ‘beaux-arts’ world, and decided to work with the immaterial substances true to the 20th century: space, light and time. He made many moving, interactive and programmed sculptures, experimental cybernetic shows, films, projects for urban planning and published a number of books. His book ‘La Ville Cybernétique’ stand as one of the highpoints of his output, in which he outlines his ideas for a city as a giant cybernetic sculpture of sound and light, reacting to the patterns and preferences of its inhabitants. His opera ‘Kyldex’ from 1973 was possibly the most complete realisation of his ideas: a gigantic multi-media theatreshow, it included a huge robotic ballet, many projections, music by Pierre Henry, in a setup where the audience decided democratically about the progress of the performance.
In the first videographic films the tools of television were explored as an expansion of the traditional optical techniques of cinema, the biggest difference being the fact that the videosignal was being generated instantaneously. This opened the way for many new ways of working and made the electronic image a ‘space’ humans could interact with. Because of this real-time aspect, many experiments were done where performers were interacting with electronic entities and where protagonists ‘live’ inside the image, seen as a non-hierarchical, flexible kind of space, in terms quite similar to the ‘new space conception’ of Moholy-Nagy. A logical consequence of this new instantaneous production of images was also that it needed much less conscious planning than an animation film. It allowed for improvisation and intuitive decisions and enabled a new, visceral kind of filmmaking.
Another aspect of the early video-experiments mentioned above is the idea of broadcasting. Pioneers like Bill Etra and Steven Beck designed their own video synthesizers, analog machines that could produce abstract synthetic video images in real-time. These machines were seen in terms very analogous to musical instruments, and just as musicians can play live for a radio audience, it was thought that visual musicians would one day play live on television. This simultaneity of making and viewing gave rise to speculations about a direct visual communication of mind to mind. The notion of ‘feedback’ received a connotation in this context which went far beyond the technical meaning of the term: it was used to designate the community of spirits all tuned in electronically to the same event, amplifying the intentions of the visual musician by collective vibrations. In 1969 Scott Bartlett had ideas for ‘a tribal television network’ linking thirty or fourty experimental television centers, some of them supported by famous rock bands. In the words of video synthesis pioneer Eric Siegel: “‘It is the instrument of the New Television; the growing tendency of more artistic abstract television performed by beautiful enchanting people. Where conventional television seeks to inform and entertain the New Television will be engaged in expanding people’s consciousness and providing a way for constructive meditation.”
In a more general sense the idea that abstract films makes it possible to express or communicate ideas which can not be otherwise expressed is shared by almost all abstract filmmakers. Jim Davis was convinced that an artform consisting of abstract images in motion was the only artform suitable to express “the complexities of the twentieth century”, reason for him to give up sculpture and painting and turn to filmmaking instead. Jordan Belson at some point in his career claimed he could directly visualize his states of mind using his custom-built optical machinery, and he went as far as describing his films as documentaries of his inner life. And Oskar Fischinger, the most important filmmaker in the history of abstract film, wrote in 1928:
“The poetic language of the film must become as flowing as speech, so a visual vocabulary could develop which would allow us to do some thinking in those terms.”