Peter Welbel Expanded Cinema, Video and Virtual Environments top Hans Richter Rhythm 23 1923 16mmfilm b/ w, silent 3 min film strip cour tesy CeCi le Starr, New Yor k bottom Kasimir Malevlch Artis tic and SCientific Film ­ Painting and Archit ectural Concerns - Approaching the New PlastiC r Architectural System 1927 manuscript page from a t hree-page film script priva te collect ion Avant- garde Film In most hi stories of cinema t he avant-garde f ilm oc­ 1 Kaslmir Malevich, ·Painterly Laws In the Problems of CIn­ cupies a minor and marginal position. In the interwar ema: in Cinema and Culture period of the twentieth century, avant- garde film was (Kino i Kultura), nos. 7- 9, 1929. initially seen as a spin - off or by-product of visual art movements li ke Cub ism, Futurism, Suprematism, Co n­ 2 This history is described and • ,.... ......... C. l . -r ,..... ~ #"I' .. ~ ...... documented In the follOW ing structivism, Dadaism or Surrealism. Linked to these .1" '1>14~. 1",,_ • j,/".",,- "" ~ books: Sheldon Renan, movements were abstract or pictorial animat ions as An Introduction to t he America n Underground Film, well as mont age and kinet ic f il ms by art ists like Fer­ ~ leJ Dutton, Ne w York, 1967; nand Leger, Bruno Corra, Kasimir Malevich,l Viking P. Adams Sitney (ed.). Film Culture Reader. Praeger, Eggeling, Hans Richter, Laszl6 Moholy-Nagy, Oskar New York,i970, Ge ne Young­ Fischinger, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Len Lye, Lotte blood, Expended Cinema, Dutton, New Yo rk,1970: Re ininger, Berthold Bartosch, Alexan der Alexeieff and Parl<er Taylor, Underground Cla ire Parker. These f ilms constituted a body of work Film (1969), SeckerS War­ burg, London,1971; David that served as the source for the innovative and au­ Cu r t is, Experimental Cinema, t onomous post-WWI I motion picture t ha t was vari­ A Fifty- Year Evolution, Universe Books, New York, ously termed "art " or "experimental" film. This new 1971; P Adams Sitney, movement differed from its historical predecessor Visionary Films, Oxford University Press, New York, [few artists, small audiences, no media presence, no 1974: Hans Scheugl, theaters, no or ganization, no dist ributors) in t hat it Ernst Schmidt Jr., Eine Subgeschlchte des Films. wa s at a certain moment in history a mass movement . 1 " •• ,, , A",_ I"I-.. >'< r ~)'i:n~:.. ,: •.:; . :. ~..,., ' : ~ ~ -~7 " f · ,. ... ,.. , .. ~/ · .. ·~ ~ ..... " J '""t-J- ... ., ..~ j,. '4 Lel<lkon des Avantgaroe·, (with its own distributive organizatio ns, with large au­ 4>-0 J- ...--- ..... Experlmental- un d Under4 '""'L : -t.::r~ ....... ~ h'.::. .~.~. :.~: .:. ...:.: ..: . groundfilms, vols. 1, 2, h··..... -.. ,.. , -. Io ... L_.40 ..... ' ...... _'"- diences in cOrUunction with t he student and pop­ A. " ' ,; " • .), !'I _, .. _ ..... ,..• • , . .. - .. ,~~ Suhrkamp. Frarlkfurt, 1974, music revolutions, a lar ge number of filmmakers, its 1~"- . , ... Amos Vogel, Film as Subver­ sJVeArt, Random House, New own theaters and magazines). The independent or ex­ " .._.. ... t ~,. .-.-_ . II MIc:.:::J"7 -'" ,.. ..... ,-.... ,.. .,.--- York. 1974. Stephen Qwoskin, perimental f il m of t he 19605 was very conscious of Film Is - Tile Interna tional Free Cmema. Peter Owen, being a new branch of art, a new medium and f orm of J./ • • " "', /J •• , .". " ..... " ... O' -'.LL"': " ')'1 . ~44. ·"" ....... ~~ fHu• .l...,.4 "'7 .....1 "',f. , ~ ,. • .t:.. .......... ... J l ondon, 1975. Structurel art as opposed to merely a byproduct of the visu al Film Anthology; Peter Gidal (ed j, BFI Publishing, London, arts, even if some major filmmakers like Andy Warhol, 1976; Film als Film 1910 bis Guy Debord or Yoko Ono could be li nked t o Pop Art, ..... + , heute, Bir git Hem, Wulf , ~ .... 10- .... .... ,, ~,~< l' .{~ ...... .... .... Her zogenrath (e ds). the Situat ion ist International or Fluxus. This aware­ '... .' ....1 .,....... .. ...... d .. r ,. ,, - .~... ........ Kolnischer Kunst verein. ness of f ilm as new art medium led to a complete de­ Cologne. 1977: Malcolm Le J . 1 I Grice. Abstract Film and construction of classical ci nema. The apparatus of Gil J. Wo lman Stan Brakhage Birgit an d Wilhelm Hein L'Antl[~oncept Mothlight Rohfilm [Raw Film) 1951 1963 1968 f ilm stills 16mm f ilm 16mm f ilm L' lnstitut Scandinave de color, silent b/w, sound Vandalisme Compar{) 4 min 20 min f rom Joseph Wolma n, L'Antl­ film strip C t he artists concept, ~ dit i ons Allia, Paris, o Stan Brakhage 1994, p, 66 Bevond, Th e MI T Press, Cam ­ brrdge, MA/London, 1977; Deke Dusinb err e, A. L. Ree s, Film as Film, Formal Experi­ men t in Film 1910- 75, Arts Counci l of Great Britain/ classical cinema, from the camera to the projector, med ia avant- garde, and dominated maj or exhibit ions Hayward Gallery, Lon don, from the screen to the celluloid, was radically trans­ li ke t he Kasse l document a and Venice Bienn ial. In the 1979; Pe ter Gidal, Material­ ist Film, Routledge, London, formed, annih il ated and expanded, The history of same decade, f ilm entered t he f ie ld of digitally ex­ 1989; Da vid E, James (ed,), avant-garde film is a history of interpellations in the pa nded cinema To Free the Cinema, Jonas Mekas 6 The New York sense of Althusser (see my pref ace) on t he basis of Un derground, Princeton the apparatus itself.2 The deficit of the cinematic ap­ Material Experiments Un iversit y Press, Pr inceton, New Jersey, 1992;Kerry paratus theory of the 1970s was that it showed us The subversive explosion t hat shattered t he cine ­ Brougher, Art and Film Since only the ideology inherent to Hollywood f il ms,just as mat og rap hi c code in t he 19605 affect ed all of the 1945. Hall of Mirrors, Mona­ ce lli Press, Ne w Yo rk,1996, in the 1960s Umberto Eco used semiotics to exp lain technical and mater ial paramet ers of f ilm, The mater­ Spellbound: Art and Film, James Bond f ilms and t oday Slavoj Zizek uses Lacan ial character of the f ilm itself was ana lyzed by artists Ian Christie, Philip Dodd (eds), SFI Publishing, London, t o exp lain Hit chcock, Neither t heor ist used t he appa ­ who, in stead of exposing t he ce lluloid, scratched it 1996; Jack Sargeant, Na ked ra t us theory rad ica lly in order to demonst rate that (George Landow, Film In Which There Appear Sprocket Lens: Beat Cinema, Creation Books, London, 1997; A. L. the cinematic apparatus and the in scribed ideology Holes, Edge Lettering, Oirt Particles, etc., 19 65/66; Rees, A His t ory of Experi­ can be transformed by making dif f erent f ilms with Birgit and Wilhelm He in, RohFilm, 1968), perforat ed it mental Film and Video. From the Canonical Avant- Garde different technologies in the way done by avant­ with a hole pu nch [D ieter Rot h, 1965), paint ed it [Harry to Contemporarv British garde f ilmmakers. They therefore missed a vital point, Smith used 35mm mat erial, processing it with grease, Practice, SFI Publishing, Lon don,1999; Garrett and f ell be hi nd t heir own t heoret ica l premises, Their pa int , tape and spray, 1947), covered it wit h f inger­ Stewart, Bet ween Film and theoretical work insofar paradoxica ll y supported the prints (Peter We ibe l, Fingerprint,1967) or glued moths Screen. Moderr1lsm's Photo Svnthesis, Th e Uni verSity of hegemony of Hollywood and dismissed the avant ­ t o it (Stan Brakhage, Mothlight, 1963, in which moth Chicago Press, Ch ica go and ga rde movement from f il m to video, from video to dig­ wings and leaves were f ixed between layers of per­ Lon don, 1999; Into the Light The PrQjected Image in it al, as representing a transformat ion of t he cine­ f orat ed t ape and projected). Empt y frames, black f ilm American Art 1964- 1977, matic appar at us, and overexposed material were also us ed (G il J, Wo l­ Chrissie lies (ed, ), e ~ h i b, cat , Wh itney Museum of Ameri­ This transformation took place in three phases. man, L'anti- concept, 1951; Guy Debord, Hurlements can Art, Ne w Yo rk/Harry N, In the 1960s, the cinematic code was extended wit h en Faveur de Sade, 1952; Peter Kubelka, ArnulF Ra iner, Abrams, Ne w York, 2001; Malco lm Le Grice, Experi­ ana logo us means, with t he means of cinema itself. 1960; Tony Conrad, The Flicker, 1965) mental Cinema In the Digital Sho rt ly afterwards, new elements and apparatuses At the same t ime, the apparatus offilm, from Age, BFI Pub lishing, Lon don, 2001; Hans Scheu9 1, ErwBlt­ like the video recorder were introduced, and the camera to projector, was t aken apart , reassembled, ert es Kino . Die Wiener Filme cinematic code was expanded electromagnet ica ll y augmented and used in entirely new ways. There we r e der 60er Jahre, Triton, Wien, 2002, Martin Rieser, Andrea Artist s' video - from Bruce Nauman to Bill Viola, from cameraless f ilms, for which unprocessed ce ll uloid, Zap p (e ds), New Screen Nam June Pa ik to Stein a and Woody Vasu lka - was known as clear f il m, was in serted into the pr ojector Media, Cmema/Art/ Narra­ t ive, BFI Pub li shing, Lon don, init ially su cce ssful in the 1970s, but was ha lted in t he (Nam Ju ne Pa ik, Zen for Film, 1962). and films wit hout 2002, book and DVD; Margot 1980s by retro-orient ed paint erly neo-E xpr ession ism, film, in whi ch Kosugi, t o name one example, focused Lovejoy, Oigital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age, Rout ­ In the 1990s vide o art became t he dominant form of ligh t f rom a pr ojector wit hout film against a paper ledge, London, 2003 Robert Whitman Shower 1964 environ ment 16mm film loop transferred t o video, shower stall, water, wa t er pump install ation view Newar k Museum, New JerseY,1999 collection Robert Ra uschenberg photo cou rtesy Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whit man Anthony McCall Line Describing a Cone 1973 15mm film b/w, silent 31 m in installatiorl view: Artists Space, New Yo r k, 1974 Wh itney Museum of American Art, New Yo rk courtesy Anthony McCall Simorle Fort i and phot o C Peter Moore; Lucinda Ch ilds in VG Bild- Kurls t, Bonn 2003 Ro bert Wh itman's Prune Flat 1965 perfor marlce view: Exparl ded Cinema Festival, Film-Maler's Cinematheque, Ne w York, 1965 phot o 0 Pe ter Moor e, VG Bil d- Kunst, Bonrl 2003 screen, cuttin g out sections of the screen from the min ant s of t he social codes.