Film, it could be argued, is the definitive Modernist medium. It dislocates the original moment of performance from its target audience and generates an entirely new moment every time it is exhibited. It is also an exponent, like the printing press, of the infinite reproducibility of art, a process which depends upon a certain amount of alienation, of performer and spectator, as well as raising the question; since a film can be considered the immortalising of actual moments in reality, moments which are transitory, does this make film more valid than reality itself? In our group response we saw the medium of film as an opportunity to explore the themes of dislocation and alienation and were influenced in this respect by the Charlie Chaplin film "Modern Times" as well as surrealist film in general.
The relationship between the subconscious and the conscious mind, as defined by Sigmund Freud, influenced our response. As one of the figures liberates herself from the dehumanised, Fordist factory process, she is allowing her subconscious mind to dictate her actions, superceding any ego imperative to conform to her environment. In a sense, our film is a representation of the battle between the id and the ego, that as a result of her id breaking through, she is alienated both literally and metaphorically because she becomes an individual at this point, however when her ego restates its control, the routines of conventional life can proceed as normal, so the battle is repeated endlessly. This representation of the conflict between id and ego is also suggestive of the work of Jackson Pollock and the role of the artistic muse.
In order to prevent our film becoming too narrativistic, we decided to utilise the editing technology to create disjointed fragments of film and also to distort sounds and images. We used Samuel Beckett's poem "Something There" and filmed two conversations using lines from the text. This was intended to heighten the meaninglessness of the piece by removing it from its original poetic context and turning it into dialogue. As well as Beckett's poem, we used readings of our own automatic writing, which were filmed, separated from their accompanying images and subsequently sped up and slowed down at random. The decision was made to focus on particular parts of the face to further contribute to the sense of dislocation and to suggest a heightened individuality, the parts of the faces similar yet unique.
The location in which we chose to film, a disused art building we felt was extremely modernist, it had a cold, bleak atmosphere which reminded us of Beckett and its previous use as a place of creation made this bleakness a kind of anti-memorial to the creativity which had occurred there before. We decided to record a live piece of music, Edgar Varese's "Density 21.5", in this space to capture its acoustic as well as visual and sensual properties. The piece itself is an example of free chromaticism, written to bring out the qualities of the flute rather than appeal to a melodic sensibility. The visual recording of this piece was again dislocated from its soundtrack. The decision to destroy the video at the conclusion of our presentation was an expression of the conflict between the desire to immortalise a performance and the impact of the one-off act, which is related to the work of the Dadaists and Antonin Artaud.
Bibliography
Artaud, Antonin The Theatre and It's Double (1993 Calder)
Benjamin, Walter Illuminations (1970 Collins/Fontana Books)
Richter, Hans Dada, Art and Anti-Art (1997 Thames and
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