Lars Henrik Gass Film and Art After Cinema

Lars Henrik Gass Film and Art After Cinema English translation Ÿ 2019 by Lars Henrik Gass and Multimedijalni institut Translation: Laura Walde editing/adaptation: Katrin Gygax Film and Art After Cinema is translated from the second expanded German edition under the title Film und Kunst nach dem Kino Ÿ 2017 Lars Henrik Gass and StrzeleckiBooks. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, nor within any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Multimedijalni institut. Multimedijalni institut ISBN 978-953-7372-47-7 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the National and University Library in Zagreb under 001025557. Zagreb, March 2019 The author would like to thank Carmen Strzelecki and Petar Milat for their support in kindly taking on this project, as well as Laura Walde and Katrin Gygax for their careful and thoughtful translation. Lars Henrik Gass Film and Art After Cinema Contents 7 Preface to the First Edition 13 Preface to the Second Expanded Edition 19 Cinema is Disappearing from Films 55 Film Festivals as Temporary Museums 85 The Compulsion to Perceive 115 A New Kind of Epic Film 143 Film Becomes Sculptural 173 The Music Video Adapts Cinema 199 Far from the Twisted Reach of Crazy Sorrow (Epilogue) 207 About the Author Preface to the First EditionPhilo Fine Arts, 2012 ... dans le miroir glacé de l’écran, les spectateurs ne voient présentement rien qui évoque les citoyens respectables d’une démocratie. (Guy Debord) This book is about how ∫lm is disappearing from cinema. It deals with the decline of the cinema as a place to appreciate ∫lms ∞ both industrially and artistically ∞ and as a place that turned ∫lm into an autonomous social mode of perception, which distinguished it from all other forms of art for about 100 years. This is therefore also a book about ∫lms that were conceived for this speci∫c place. It discusses ∫lms whose images were technically produced and reproduced in a particular way, which is why they shape our perception in a histor- ically unique manner. Yet above all, this book also deals with ∫lms that already refer to a mode of perception beyond the space of cinema. The decline of cinema is taking place not only in a directly 7 economic and indirectly urban sense, in that tradi- tional places for viewing ∫lms (and the corre- sponding architectural spaces) are disappearing. This would hardly be worth mentioning, since ∫lms continue to be produced (for a speci∫c market, or none at all) and are simply shown elsewhere. This development is not new; it has been apparent since at least the early 1960s. What is new is that cinema is also declining in terms of the mode of perception that ∫lm owes precisely and exclusively to cinema: a cognitive space in which the viewer no longer observes, reΩects on, or envisions reality, but ∞ lost in time ∞ is compelled to perceive. This social mode of perception is what I term cinema. The decline of cinema is played out simultane- ously at the movie theater and within the ∫lms themselves. Cinema is almost imperceptibly fading from ∫lms, which in turn are disappearing from cinema. This book is therefore about a social mode of perception that once constituted a particular historical manifestation of cinema. The technological and economic grounds for this development ∞ cinema as a venue for viewing ∫lms is increasingly losing importance; changes in the leisure habits of society mean the social pact linked to cinema-going is becoming ever less relevant ∞ have been described many times before and shall therefore not be dealt with again in this book. The decline of cinema can 8 be traced back to both societal reasons, with other leisure activities replacing the trip to the movie theater, and technological reasons, as leisure society began using other means to regulate access to ∫lm. First television, then new storage media for private use: VHS, later DVD, the internet, mobile devices, etc. However, as cinema declines ∞ a decline which began as gradual destruction and will ultimately lead to cinema’s disappearance ∞ not only are ∫lms being released that are meant to be viewed outside the cinema (in private as well as in public, on computer screens and as part of art exhibitions), they have also changed in appearance and in the way they are perceived. Cinema was intrinsic to ∫lm as a mode of perception. Film was once the visible expression of cinema, visualizing both it and the unknown world within it. Film structured social experience through cinema. How ∫lm is used, where and how it is shown, and the speci∫c cultural practice of ∫lm all determine the way it is perceived. Never have so many ∫lms been produced, never have so many ∫lms been available to us thanks to the internet and DVDs, and never have we watched as many ∫lms as we do today. Strictly speaking, this book is not about aesthetic appraisal, but about asking how ∫lm is produced, presented and perceived beyond the scope of cinema. 9 This book is less about the “death of cinema” than it is about the mutation and migration of ∫lms, for example the relocation of artistic ∫lm to the spaces of the art world. Therefore, this book looks at a development in which viewing ∫lm takes place outside the cinema, and at the consequences of this on its speci∫c forms of appearance and presentation. Film has been acknowledged within the art world under conditions we did not expect. For a few ∫lms and ∫lmmakers, this has resulted in unforeseen recognition and a new source of income. At the same time, this also has had an impact on how ∫lms are produced and perceived in this context. Any kind of institutional logic ∞ that is, a system of discourses and values, of spaces and tech- niques ∞ is inevitably mapped onto the ∫lms, onto their presentation and reception; it dictates what we perceive, what we think. Therefore, this book is not about ∫lm as an art form considered from the vantage point of philo- sophical aesthetics, but rather about the current conditions under which ∫lms are created and shown. This book is a critique of the cognitive space we call cinema, which has occasionally allowed us access to an alternative mode of perception and a different existence; and it is above all a critique of the social and economic, architectural and technical conditions and formats ∞ be they television, DVD, 10 internet, ∫lm festivals, exhibitions or museums ∞ insofar as they structure our perception and determine how we view ∫lms and what we perceive of the world at present. Speci∫c ∫lms (by Steven Spiel- berg, Andy Warhol, Douglas Gordon, and others), historical manifestations (experimental ∫lm, found footage, music videos, etc.) as well as a speci∫c kind of institutional logic ∞ particularly that of the art world ∞ serve as points of departure. It is almost inevitable that certain generalizations will be made that cannot do justice to the individual institution, speci∫c exhibition, museum, ∫lm festival, or, generally speaking, to the simultaneity of various practices. Some pointedly critical remarks may therefore be contestable from a ∫lm-historical or theoretical perspective. If cinema is in retrospect speculatively and emphatically understood as an autonomous mode of perception ∞ a mode of perception presently in danger of being lost ∞ then perhaps this is a result of us not yet having fully grasped what cinema once was. Furthermore, for the purposes of this book cinema is understood as a possibility, meaning that although indeed feas- ible, it is an always-unstable alternative to the gaze currently prescribed by the majority of television programs, ∫lm festivals, museums and exhi bitions. 11 This book is the result of texts I have written and presentations and interviews I have given since 1995. Parts have been published in newspapers, magazines and books, as well as in the catalogues of the KunstFilmBiennale in Cologne and the Inter- national Short Film Festival Oberhausen. I would like to thank everyone who has encouraged the creation and publication of these texts. They were often contributions, or interventions made for a speci∫c occasion. This concern for the present remains. References and footnotes are deliberately omitted for better readability. I wish to thank Jan-Frederik Bandel, Alexander Horwath and Stefan Ripplinger for their critical reading of the manuscript. 12 Preface to the Second Expanded Edition StrzeleckiBooks, 2017 Two years after its publication in 2012, the ∫rst edition of this book was out of print. As no agree- ment on a reissue could be reached with the original publisher, I had to ∫nd another publishing house that could be convinced to continue the journey. This enabled ∞ or even compelled ∞ me to revise the texts in order to remedy any shortcomings I had allowed myself, due to impatience or lack of ability, and to expand on my understanding of the issues at stake based on the many new exhibitions and ∫lms I have seen, the countless articles and books I have read, and the myriad presentations and discussions I have witnessed since 2012. Upon its release I was convinced that this book could be discarded within two years, as it was thought to be a response to current events and would have lost its signi∫cance by then. Thanks to the many reactions to this book I was able to realize exactly what I had written, or at least had wanted to write; and this may now allow 13 me to delve more precisely into the questions I had already answered.

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