Ryszard W. Kluszczynski is professor of film and media studies, as well
as theory and the history of Art at the UNIVERSITY OF LODZ in Poland.
Also a writer and curator, Ryszard W. Kluszczynski runs the media art
department at the center for contemporary art in Warsaw.

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The history of avant-garde media art using moving pictures as the means
of expression in Central and Eastern European countries is over 70 years
old. Obviously, such experiments were dominated by film people, who
often referred in their work to their experiences in the field of
photography. In the first half of the 1970's video art began to develop
parallel to film experiments. With time, this parallelism was
imbalanced, and, gradually, video art assumed a dominant position (to
different degrees in each country). In recent years another
transformation has been observed, resulting in the increasing interest
of both artists and their audiences in interactive media art, placing
its subjects in virtual reality and employing the communication
potential of Internet.

The historical analysis presented here arises from a conviction that the
present standing of (multi)media artistic culture in Central and Eastern
Europe cannot be fully understood if it is referred to only in its
technological context and political environment. The diversity of its
forms and manifestations as well as the dominance of certain tendencies
is also a result of historical inspiration. To some extent earlier
achievements determine the shape of the present even in those fields of
artistic creation which are commonly regarded as the embodiment of
modernity and, somewhat naively, linked solely to the future. Even in
the era of global communications we have our roots, not only aerials. As
a matter of fact, it is also possible that the "historisation" of the
present, understood in different ways, is a feature characteristic of
the (multi)media culture of Central and Eastern European countries.

1.

The history of experimental cinema in Central Europe began in the
1920's. In that period the interest of avant-garde artists in
cinematography was mainly manifested in writing (theoretical and
critical texts, film projects, screenplays, etc.): it was not until the
late 1920's and early 1930's that actual film-making activities in that
part of Europe were initiated. In Russia, experimental tendencies began
to develop earlier, from the second decade of this century. Initially,
they focused mainly on the area of documentaries films, which was mainly
due to Dzhiga Vertov. Working only with real, documentary material,
Vertov subordinate it to the properties of the film media, in particular
the movement and editing which organised it. In the 1920's the trend of
avant-garde narrative cinema emerged (Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov,
Vsevolod Pudovkyn, Aleksander Dovzhenko), arising from the foundation of
constructivist ideas, experimental editing, as well as the trend of
film 'eccentricism' related to Russian futurism (Grigori Kozintsev,
Leonid Taruberg, Sergei Yutkevych).

In Czechoslovakia, the avant-garde aesthetics of film can be traced
mainly to the artists of the "Devetsil" group, with Karel Teige
publishing numerous critical and theoretical texts on the cinema.
Fundamental to their aesthetics was the conviction that the two basic
features of the cinema which built the poetic dimension of film works
were light and movement. In reflections by Czech artists, inspirations
taken from constructivism (supplemented with the tendency to use real
material) intermingled with those of surrealism, which in Czechoslovakia
had assumed, for the most part, the form of poeticism. Despite the
presence of other elements in discussions about film (for instance, the
cinema as visual music), poeticism was acclaimed as the main principle
of the cinema, with so-called visual dramatism as the form of its
expression. The expected result of that combination of preferences for
real material with poetical tendencies, accomplished by transforming
documentary records into visual poems was "intensified equivalent to
the poetry of the flow of life" (Teige). It was from that mode of
thinking that the avant-garde Czech cinema of the 1930's emerged, with
films by Alexander Hackenschmied, Cenek Zahradnicek, Jirzi Lechovec,
Otakar Vavra, and others.

In Poland, after a period of lively though purely theoretical interest
in film (closest to practice were two authors of film projects,
Mieczyseaw Szczuka and Jan Brz+kowski), theoretical discussions began
find practical realisation. Responsible for the creation of avant-garde
Polish cinema, along with auteurs of single films, such as Jalu Kurek,
Janusz Maria Brzeski and Kazimierz Podsadecki, were Franciszka and
Stefan Themerson. Between 1930 and 1945 they made 7 films (the last two
in Britain during the Second World War). The Themersons' film strategy
was marked by their particular interest in the substance of the picture.
They used to define filmmaking as "creating visions." In their film
works they used results of previous photographic experiments. They also
explored the issue of equivalency between the visual and the musical
layers, which together made up the structure of the film (see for
example, The Eye and the Ear (1944-5)). The Themersons did a lot to the
film avant-garde in Poland, such as founding the first-ever
association/co-operative of independent filmmakers, the "f.a."
periodical, and they also introduced a number of experimental French and
British films to the Polish community. Their interest in the nature of
connections between film and music influenced the abstract films of
Onufry Broniseaw KopczySigmaski. As he saw it, movie film should be
treated as a score, and the film itself was to be performed, not simply
"shown." With this theoretical assumption, the parameters of creative
film work were extended – presentation was recognised as a phase of
artistic creation. The showing of the film became part of its discourse,
and the projectionist turned into an artist. That vision of a film as a
score interpreted by its author by means of a tool such as a projector
was a presage of later experiments by artists associated with the
circles expanded from cinema.

In Hungary, the interest of the avant-garde in the cinema also began
with theoretical publications by such artists and theoreticians as Bela
Balazs, Erno Kallai, Alfred Kemeny, Kornel Melleky and Georgy Gero
(regarded as the first independent filmmaker in Hungary). Particularly
important to film experimententation was the "MA" ("Today") magazine,
published in Vienna by Lajos Kassak. "MA" ("Today") published the first
articles by Hungarian authors on avant-garde cinema, including the full
version (with illustrations) of the script by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy,
entitled "Sketch for a Film: Dynamics of a Big City." Moholy-Nagy was
the most prominent personality of the Hungarian avant-garde. He employed
numerous media in his work, including photographs taken with and without
a camera. For him, light was crucial in visual creation. From his
perspective, the cinema was primarily the art of light projections. As A
result, Moholy-Nagy became one of the precursors of the 'extended
cinema'. He built a device known as Lichtrequisit (or
Licht-Raum-Modulator, 1922-1930), which was used in numerous live shows
and was employed in the making of a film entitled "Lichtspiel:
schwarz-weiss-grau" (1930). Moholy-Nagy was also the auteur of other
films, where he investigated the issues of movement perception and
articulation. The most important period in his artistic career was
during his association with the Bauhaus. Among other artists who made
their film projects and experiments in the field of light kinetics in
the Bauhaus circle were Sandor Laszlo (who designed a device for light
projections), Vilmos Huszar and Gyorgy Pal.

2

During the first years after the Second World War, the nationalisation
of both film production, and, even more importantly, filmmaking as an
artistic activity (by its submission to ideological control, which at
the same time imposed a socialist realisy artistic programme) distorted
the development of experimental tendencies in the countries dominated by
the Soviet Union. There were a few films made in the first post-war
decade that proved avant-garde attitudes had not disappeared, but were
in hiding, waiting for the political climate to change. The 1950s were
better times, because of a political thaw following Stalin's death.
Among those who were the first to take advantage of the more favourable
climate were artists in Hungary, Yugoslavia and Poland.

An event crucial to the development of the avant-garde cinema was the
establishment of Bela Balazs' Studio (BBS) in 1959. The most important
of all BBS' initiatives in the field of experimental film was the Film
Language Series, initiated at the beginning of the 1970's. It was
connected with the activities of the "K/3 Section", a group of artists
who consciously referred to the film facet of Bauhaus in their work.
Among those who made their films within the FL Series were Gabor Body,
Dora Maurer, Zoltan Jeney and Andreas Szirtes, as well as Miklos Ederly
and Janos Toth. An important feature of the Film Language Series
Productions was their intermedial character, arising from the fact that
the artists represented different art practices. That interdisciplinary
contact led to films that reflected on the properties of the cinema as
such, and on audio-visual communication. In Poland, worth mentioning are
Kineforms, created by Andrzej Paweowski in the second half of the 1950's
(these were experiments in the domain of light kinetics), as well as the
inception of the experimental trend of animated films, the most
interesting being the works of Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk. In
1970, a Workshop of Film Form was established in yenod.5, the most
significant of all artistic formations in the Polish cinema of the
post-war period. The main representatives of WFF were Jozef Robakowski,
Ryszard Wayko, Wojciech Bruszewski and Pawee Kwiek. The members of the
Workshop proclaimed the need to investigate the properties of the film
media. Their works analysed the character of film perception and inner
connections between various levels of the film structure, and studied
the issues of the relation of reality to its audio-visual
representation, as well as the relation, and representation, of
spectator and reality.

The connection existing between the picture and sound, as well as
between the mechanical character of the media and psycho-physiological
nature of its user, were often explored in the films by Workshop-based
artists. It is worth mentioning that WFF artists manifested specific
Fluxus-like attitudes: provocations, unmaskings or discreditations were
directed towards the lack of authenticity, shallowness or masquerades of
the art world. The art of Zbigniew Rybczynski developed from the
foundation of WFF experiences. He developed his genuine, distinctive
style using mainly an optic photocopier and colour filters; he
experimented with picture formats and combined traditional animation
with processed live action. In 1983, RybczySigmaski won an Oscar (in the
category of animated films) for "Tango" (1980). Other films he made
after leaving Poland, such as "Steps" (1985), "The Fourth Dimension"
(1988), "L'Orchestre" (1990) and "Kafka" (1992), confirmed his position
of one of the most prominent artists in the field of experimental cinema
and video art in the world.

In Yugoslavia, the first important avant-garde films appeared at the
beginning of the 1960s. In that period, as well as in the 70s, a number
of centres were created, including MM in Zagreb and SKUC in Belgrade,
whose scope of interest included, among other genres, experimental
film. Among the most innovative artists in that field were Ladislav
Galeta and Tomislav Gotovac. Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia were the
only countries of the Eastern block ('Eastern' being a political term),
where in the 1970's the avant-garde cinema evolved and developed,
reaching international standards and gaining world-wide recognition; as
far as other states are concerned, we can speak only of individual
artists. In Czechoslovakia for instance, after 1964, Jan Svankmajer
began making experimental animated films related in form and content to
the surrealist ideology of the pre-war period. In the 1980's
experimental filmmaking gradually declined, forced out by video art. In
Hungary this process was far less intensive (if we can speak of it all),
as video continued to be made alongside film. In the mid-1980s in
Russia, where video still remained a thing of the future, a group of
artists led by Igor and Gleb Aleinikov initiated film experiments
("parallel cinema") using the experiences of FEKS' expressionism and
eccentricism, having labelled their style "necrorealism". Russian video
art emerged later than in the rest of Central Europe, and was parallel
to the alternative cinema trend.

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PART 2 will appear on http://www.rhizome.org/fresh on 4.29.98.