In the Same Box: Unhinging Audiovisual Media in the 1960S and 1970S
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All in the Same Box: Unhinging Audiovisual Media in the 1960s and 1970s A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Kalani Bianca Michell IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Professor Rembert Hüser, Advisor August 2018 Kalani Michell 2018 © Abstract All in the Same Box: Unhinging Audiovisual Media in the 1960s and 1970s This project examines problems in media theory in contemporary art and visual culture, specifically by arguing that there should be more of it in the visual arts. If one wants to rigorously engage with objects that don’t correspond to disciplinary boundaries and ‘high’ and ‘low’ aesthetic categories, as is the case with several multimedial artistic projects of the 1960s and 1970s, then one must accept that theories of photography, television, painting, print culture and sound objects can no longer be considered apart from one another. These kinds of projects cannot be deemed part of art history and then analyzed with a bit of Marshall McLuhan. Nor can they be claimed by film studies and peppered with Rosalind Krauss. These are projects that take relocation, or their unhinging from standard sites of production and exhibition, as their point of departure, and thus they force, in my readings, central intermedial concerns to the foreground, from questions of medium specificity to problems of storage and containment. Three such case studies structure my dissertation: 1) an exhibition of a collective ‘performance’ including Joseph Beuys on live television in West Germany in 1964 that was saved only in the form of photographs, resulting in controversial copyright cases over the last decade reaching the Bundesgerichtshof; 2) boxed magazines of the 1960s that, in their unbound forms, combined numerous medial objects, suggesting, similarly to unboxing videos on YouTube, non-linear theories of order and storage; and 3) a film by Hellmuth Costard i from 1978 documenting, over several years, experiments with Super 8, video and television in his work and on the production sets of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hark Bohm and Jean-Luc Godard, thematizing structural problems of institutions in making these cross-medial endeavors possible. Studying these projects from a single disciplinary viewpoint has led to a highly reductive reading of their medial practices, the constellation of media involved in their production, distribution and exhibition. Rather than nostalgically romanticizing these projects as failed historical attempts to democratize art and culture, my work finds in them continuities with the present era, a time when the rhetoric of democracy (access) and the proliferation of material and information entailed in medial expansion (excess) result in important and often irreconcilable aesthetic, cultural and political tensions. ii Table of Contents List of Figures………………………………………………………………………..v-xv. List of Media Files………………………………………………………..………xvi-xvii. Einstieg………………………………………………………….………….……........1-17. Chapter One: Taking Down Pictures Access and Excess………………………………………………………..………….18-35. Transmitting..……..…………………………………………………………..……...35-49. Storing……………………………………………………………………….………50-63. Processing ………………………………………...……..…………………….….…64-71. Chapter Two: Orders of Expansion Unboxing………………………………………………………………………….…72-93. Aspen……………………………………….………………………………………93-126. S.M.S. ……………………………………….…………………………………….127-145. Reboxing…………………………………………………….……….…….…..…145-152. Chapter Three: Antragsfilme – Film Pitches Revolting Formats…………………………………………………………..….…153-166. iii Der kleine Godard………………………………………………………...………166-203. Der ‘große’ Godard……………………………….………………………...….…203-228. Afterwork……………………………….……….…………….…………………229-242. Bibliography …………………………………………….…….…………………243-306. iv List of Figures Fig. 1. Joseph Beuys. Das Schweigen von Marcel Duchamp wird überbewertet (1964). On exhibition at the Museum Schloss Moyland (with Bettina Paust). Photo: dpa. Fig. 2. Manfred Tischer. Photograph of collective Fluxus performance with Joseph Beuys, Bazon Brock and Wolf Vostell. On exhibition at the Museum Schloss Moyland in 2009 and in 2014. Fig. 3. Reproduction of decision by the Landgericht Düsseldorf on September 29, 2010. Aktenzeichen 12 O 255/09. Graphic indication added (KM). Fig. 4. Reproduction of decision by the Landgericht Düsseldorf on September 29, 2010. Aktenzeichen 12 O 255/09. Graphic indication added (KM). Fig. 5. Reproduction of decision by the Landgericht Düsseldorf on September 29, 2010. Aktenzeichen 12 O 255/09. Graphic indication added (KM). Fig. 6. Reproduction of decision by the Landgericht Düsseldorf on September 29, 2010. Aktenzeichen 12 O 255/09. Graphic indication added (KM). v Fig. 7. Caroline Bachmann and Stefan Banz. Ein Eklat (Kampf und Urteil) (2010-11). Detail (graphic indication added [KM]). Photograph (KM) taken at the exhibition of Das Schweigen der Junggesellen, Museum Schloss Moyland, February 16-April 27, 2014. Fig. 8. Caroline Bachmann and Stefan Banz. Ein Eklat (Kampf und Urteil) (2010-11). Installation view. Photograph (KM) taken at the exhibition of Das Schweigen der Junggesellen, Museum Schloss Moyland, February 16-April 27, 2014. Fig. 9. Joseph Beuys – Unveröffentlichte Fotografien von Manfred Tischer. Installation view. Photograph (KM) taken at Das Schweigen der Junggesellen and Joseph Beuys – Unveröffentlichte Fotografien von Manfred Tischer. Museum Schloss Moyland, February 16-April 27, 2014. Fig. 10. Caroline Bachmann and Stefan Banz. Das Schweigen der Junggesellen. Installation view. Photograph (KM) taken at Das Schweigen der Junggesellen and Joseph Beuys – Unveröffentlichte Fotografien von Manfred Tischer. Museum Schloss Moyland, February 16-April 27, 2014. Fig. 11a. Joseph Beuys. Das Schweigen von Marcel Duchamp wird überbewertet (1964). On exhibition at the Museum Schloss Moyland. Photo: dpa vi Fig. 11b. Joseph Beuys. Das Schweigen von Marcel Duchamp wird überbewertet (1964). On exhibition at the Museum Schloss Moyland. Photo: dpa. Graphic indication added (KM). Fig. 12. Manfred Tischer. Photo of Fluxus group event at the ZDF-Landesstudio, December 11, 1964. Joseph Beuys Archiv/Stiftung Schloss Moyland, JBA 7 – 92838. Fig. 13. Aspen 5+6. 1967. Photograph (KM) taken at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. Fig. 14. S.M.S. 1. February 1968. Photograph (KM) taken at the Klingspor Museum Archive in Offenbach. Fig. 15. Aspen 5+6. 1967. Photograph (KM) taken at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. Fig. 16. S.M.S. 1. February 1968. Photograph (KM) taken at the Klingspor Museum Archive in Offenbach. Fig. 17. S.M.S. 1. February 1968. Screenshot from Sensate online video documentation of S.M.S. 1. vii Fig. 18. S.M.S. 6. December 1968. Screenshot from Sensate online video documentation of S.M.S. 1. Fig. 19. Kornhaber Brown and Mike Rugnetta. “What’s the Deal With Unboxing Videos?” PBS Digital Studies Idea Channel. YouTube. Screenshot. Fig. 20. IntellivisionDude. The Wizard of OZ Ultimate Collector’s Edition 70th Anniversary DVD Unboxing. YouTube. Screenshot. Fig. 21. IntellivisionDude. The Wizard of OZ Ultimate Collector’s Edition 70th Anniversary DVD Unboxing. YouTube. Screenshot. Fig. 22. Aspen 5+6. 1967. Photograph (KM) taken at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. Fig. 23. Susan Sontag. “The Aesthetics of Silence” (1967). In Aspen 5+6. 1967. Detail. Photograph (KM) taken at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. Fig. 24. Tony Smith. The Maze (1967). In Aspen 5+6. 1967. Photograph (KM) taken at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. viii Fig. 25. Advertisement for Aspen in Evergreen Review. September 1968. Photograph (KM). Fig. 26. Advertisement for Tupperware with vice president Bonnie Wise. 1954. Fig. 27. Advertisement for CCA. Designed by “W.C.” Fig. 28. Advertisement for CCA. Designed by A.M. Cassandre. Fig. 29. Advertisement for CCA. Designed by Herbert Bayer. Fig. 30. Advertisement for CCA. Designed by Matthew Leibowitz. Fig. 31. Advertisement for CCA. Designed by A.M. Cassandre. Fig. 32. Advertisement for Aspen in Evergreen Review. April 1967. Photograph (KM). Fig. 33. Advertisement for CCA. Designed by A.M. Cassandre. Fig. 34. Advertisement for Aspen in Evergreen Review. April 1968. Photograph (KM). ix Fig. 35. Advertisement for CCA. Designed by Joseph Cornell. Part of “Great Ideas of Western Man” series, c. 1957-58. Fig. 36. Sol LeWitt. Serial Project #1. 1966. In Aspen 5+6. 1967. Photograph (KM) taken at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. Fig. 37. Brian O’Doherty. Structural Play #3. In Aspen 5+6. 1967. Photograph (KM) taken at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. Fig. 38. S.M.S. 2. 1968. Cover: Marcel Duchamp. Recording of Contrepetrie. Remove to play. Photograph (KM) taken at the Klingspor Museum Archive in Offenbach. Fig. 39. Paul Bergtold. Concept Bergtold. In S.M.S. 4. 1968. Photograph (KM) taken at the Klingspor Museum Archive in Offenbach. Fig. 40. Paul Bergtold. Concept Bergtold. In S.M.S. 4. 1968. Photograph (KM) taken at the Klingspor Museum Archive in Offenbach. Fig. 41. Paul Bergtold. Concept Bergtold. In S.M.S. 4. 1968. Photograph (KM) taken at the Klingspor Museum Archive in Offenbach. x Fig. 42. Kasper König. My Country ‘Tis of Thee - West Germany, 1968 (Four Views). In S.M.S. 1. 1968. Screenshot from Sensate online documentation of S.M.S. 1. Fig. 43. Kasper König. My Country ‘Tis of Thee - West Germany, 1968 (Four Views). In S.M.S. 1. 1968. Screenshot from Sensate online documentation of S.M.S. 1. Fig. 44. Kasper König. My Country ‘Tis of Thee - West Germany, 1968 (Four Views).