"Photography, which is until recently had a merely illustrative and documentary value, has proceeded to research of a plastic nature, which is extremely interesting. It is indisputably the cinema that blazed the trail for photography; but, by that it 'keeps,' that it 'fixes' stereotyping, it seems to me somewhat contray to the cinematographic 'fact' which is moveable and successive by definition", wrote Fernand Léger in his preface to Moï Ver's Paris. Through the thickness of the book and in the processing of he pages the photographer rediscovers the relationships of succession perculiar to the cinema.
Jan Dibbets is a conceptual artist associated with earth art or environmental art, that “broad-based movement of artists who shared two key concerns of the sixties: the rejection of commercialisation of art and the support of the emerging ecological movement” (Atkins, 1990 p.71).
Dibbets uses a “series of aligned colour photographs to depict landscape by ‘correcting’ or modifying the way humans, the camera and nature itself interact and thus “challenge the ‘reality’ of the photograph and that of seeing with the naked eye” (Stangos, N., et al, 1994 p.111). As well as dealing with the facts of the natural world”, his work engages with the conceptual aspects of perception” (Wheeler, D., 1991 p.265). This reference to perception recalls cubisms visual shuttling and depictions of fleeting events. “The world”, through the eyes of the Cubists “is set forth as a field of shifting relationships that includes the onlooker” (Hughes, 1991 p.32).
Jan Dibbets is “heir to a terrain” that is “constricted” and from a culture “rich in traditional landscape painting” (Wheeler, 1991 p.265). Like earlier Dutch artists Dibbets “deals with the natural world as well as the conceptual aspects of perception, all of which makes him a son not only of Rembrandt and Ruysdael, but also Saenredam (Holland’s 17th Century proto-abstract painter of church interiors) and the great Mondrian” (Wheeler, 1991 p. 265).
The flatness of the Dutch landscape would prove problematic to landscape painters who went on to resolve this “by filling the sky with mountainous clouds” (Wheeler, 1991 p.265). Dibbets found his solution in the camera and so “photographed the native polder serially by mounting his camera on a tripod and rotating it 30 degrees for each twelve shots, all the while progressively tilting the instrument” (Wheeler, 1991 p.265).
The result, “when aligned side by side the sequential color images represented the platitudinous Dutch horizon as a show wave curve or extended mound.” Thus Dibbets, “reshaped the Lowlands and created mountains, at least in the metaphorical manner possible with conceptual documentation” (Wheeler, 1991 p.265).
Sources:
Atkins, R., (1990) Artspeak: a guide to contemporary ideas, movements, and buzzwords New York: Abbeville Press Publishers
Hughes, R., (1991) Shock of the New London: Thames and Hudson
Stangos, N., (1994) The Thames and Hudson dictionary of art and artists London: Thames and Hudson
Wheeler, D., (1991) Art since Mid Century London: Thames and Hudson
Man Ray’s ironically Le Retour à la raison (‘Return to Reason’) is one of a few films made by a Dadaist. The other film-makers associated with the movement include Hans Richter and Rene Clair. Man Ray’s film was shown as part of the ‘Soiree du couer de à barbe’ which marked the demise of the movement in Paris in 1923.
Man Ray applied his rayogram to cinematography. I did not place Man Ray with the other abstract filmmakers featured in the blog because the quality is not related to painterly forms (Ruttmen, Richter, Fishinger) but a direct physical action on to the film and a process that relates to material nature of film. The abstract quality relates to the films “mechanics, materials, chemistry and techniques of cinematography” (Le Grice, 1977, p.34). The emphasis therefore is upon the physicality of the medium.
Sources:
Le Grice, M., Abstract Film and Beyond, Cambridge, Mass, London, UK: MIT Press
I have already included one entry for Ruttman that shows one of his abstract films Lightplay Opus I. Ruttman would collaboratewith the animator Lotte Reininger. Ruttman’s reputation as a film maker however, is based on the above documentary Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. It is such an innovative example of cinema that it “remains a model for subsequent urban portraits throughout the world” (Kostelanetz, 2001 p.534). The rhythmic nature of the film puts me in mind Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance from 1982 and other earlier films by Man Ray.
Ruttman is not without his critics: “within twenty years” argues David Thomson, "Ruttman had moved from being a proponent of absolute cinema to a leading propagandist" (Thomson, D., 1975 p. 501). Ruttman's pure cinema "was always sterile and formalistic" and was "waiting to be exploited by a totalitarian message" (Thomson, D., 1975 p. 501). Indeed, Berlin does feature rhythm and motifs, "the large scale integration of single effects" that is similar to the hypnotic ornament of Celtic design, tattoos or a military parade. Is Ruttman, as John Grierson has argued "meretricious and dangerous"? (Thomas, D., 1975, p.501).
Sources:
Kostelanetz, R., (2001) Dictionary of Avant-gardes 2nd Edition, New York and London: Routledge.
Thomas, D (1975) A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema, London: Secker and Warburg
John is a lecturer in Media at Lincoln University and an artist. He began his real love for education at West Park College, Smethwick 1988-90, before going on to do his National Diploma in Art and Design at Stourbridge College in 1990. He went to Humberside Polytechnic and graduated in 94 after it had changed to Humberside University. From 1994-99 exhibited his work in a number of group shows. He also worked with a number of art groups and organisations before in 2000 becoming a university lecturer (thank you Jenny Wolmark!). John worked in art and design for about eight years before moving into the School of Media. He makes digital images.
This particular blog is a response to work started during the MA in Digital Imaging and Photography at the School of Media, Lincoln University 2009-11. This blog deals with a wide range of topics to do with visual culture: photography, art, theory, technologies and media practice.
