a2 unit 3: art and the moving image - structuralism

8/14/2019 A2 Unit 3: Art and the Moving Image - Structuralism

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Unit 3: Art and theMoving Image

1970s - Structural Film


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Definitions

Structural film was an experimental film movement prominent inthe US in the 1960s and which developed into theStructural/materialist films in the UK in the 1970s.

The term was coined by P. AdamsSitney who noted that filmartists such as Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, GeorgeLandow(aka Owen Land), PaulSharits, Tony Conrad, Joyce Wieland,ErnieGehr, , KurtKren, and PeterKubelka had moved awayfrom the complex and condensed forms of cinema practiced bysuch artists as Sidney Peterson and StanBrakhage.

"Structural film" artists pursued instead a more simplified,

sometimes even predetermined art. The shape of the film was crucial, the content peripheral.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._Adams_Sitneyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._Adams_Sitneyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Snowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollis_Framptonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Landow_(filmmaker)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Landow_(filmmaker)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Landhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sharitshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sharitshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Conradhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Wielandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Gehrhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Gehrhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Krenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Krenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kubelkahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kubelkahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Petersonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Brakhagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Brakhagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Brakhagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Brakhagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Petersonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kubelkahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kubelkahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Krenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Krenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Gehrhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Gehrhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Wielandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Conradhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sharitshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sharitshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Landhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Landow_(filmmaker)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Landow_(filmmaker)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollis_Framptonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Snowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._Adams_Sitneyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._Adams_Sitney


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Definitions

Narrative film creates an illusion of a realworld in two dimensions on the screen.

The structuralist filmmakers were aware

that film was until then used as arepresentation of the reality and they choseto make this the subject of their films. Theirfilms could only be watched in a state of

hyper-awareness where the viewer wasconstantly reminded that the content of theimage was no more than an illusion.


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Characteristics

The film society and self-financing model of the pre-war era continued over the next twodecades, but by the early 1960s, a different outlook became perceptible in the work ofAmerican avant-garde filmmakers. Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man exemplified a shift frompersonal confessional to abstraction. Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Risingwas an invertedmusical of sorts and a camp commentary on Hollywood mythology. Jack Smith and AndyWarhol incorporated camp minimalism into their work.

Some avant-garde filmmakers moved further away from narrative. Whereas the NewAmerican Cinema was marked by an oblique take on narrative, one based on abstraction,

camp and minimalism, Structural-Materialist filmmakers like Hollis Frampton and MichaelSnow created a highly formalist cinema that foregrounded the medium itself: the frame,projection, and most importantly time itself. By breaking film down into bare components,they sought to create an anti-illusionist cinema.

Sitney identified four formal characteristics common in Structural films, but all fourcharacteristics are not usually present in any single film:

fixed camera position (an apparently fixed framing) flicker effect (strobing due to the intermittent nature of film) loop printing rephotography (off the screen)


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Structure, Process, Chance

Similarly in other areas of the Arts artists were focussing onstructure, Process and Chance.

American Composer John Cage (September 5, 1912 August12, 1992) was a pioneer ofchance music, electronic music andnon-standard use of musical instruments.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 433, thethree movements of which are performed without a single notebeing played. The content of the composition is meant to beperceived as the sounds of the environment that the listenershear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and

thirty three seconds of silence, and the piece became one of themost controversial compositions of the twentieth century.

http://www.soundnet.org/concerts/mov_refs/2002.shtml#cage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleatoric_musichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_musichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_techniquehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3http://www.soundnet.org/concerts/mov_refs/2002.shtmlhttp://www.soundnet.org/concerts/mov_refs/2002.shtmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_techniquehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_musichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleatoric_music


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Robert Rauschenberg(1925 2008) Robert Rauschenberg (1925 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in

the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is perhapsmost famous for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials andobjects were employed in innovative combinations.

By 1962, Rauschenberg's paintings were beginning to incorporate not only found objectsbut found images as well - photographs transferred to the canvas by means of thesilkscreen process. Previously used only in commercial applications, silkscreen allowedRauschenberg to address the multiple reproducibility of images, and the consequent

flattening of experience that implies. In this respect, his work is contemporaneous with thatofAndy Warhol, and both Rauschenberg and Johns are frequently cited as importantforerunners of American Pop Art.

10 comments Latest by Charlie Triplett This obituary of Robert Rauschenberg contains some great quotes from the artist An improvisatory process was what mattered most to him:

Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanaticallycorrect assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, Icant read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

Embracing change is essential: John Cage said that fear in life is the fear of change. If I may add to that: nothing can

avoid changing. Its the only thing you can count on. Because life doesnt have any otherpossibility, everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Expressionismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkscreenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warholhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Arthttp://37signals.com/svn/posts/1029-robert-rauschenberg-on-process-change-boredom-and-more?10http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/arts/design/14rauschenberg.html?ex=1368504000&en=d3a4d36bf153bbf4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalinkhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/arts/design/14rauschenberg.html?ex=1368504000&en=d3a4d36bf153bbf4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalinkhttp://37signals.com/svn/posts/1029-robert-rauschenberg-on-process-change-boredom-and-more?10http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warholhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkscreenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Expressionism


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Robert Rauschenberg(1925 2008)


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Wavelength

Filmmakers began to respond to a new wave of minimalism andself-referentiality in the arts during the 1960s . Evidence of thiscan be heard in the music of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich.

Films were also marked by their abandonment of montage. InMichael Snows Wavelength (1967) for 45 minutes a camera

slowly and irregularly zooms into the far wall of a loft apartment,accompanied by a rising sine wave.

http://www.ubu.com/film/snow_wavelength.html Long duration is used to challenge mainstream narrative. Many filmmakers were also interested in systems, numbers and

linguistics.
http://www.ubu.com/film/snow_wavelength.htmlhttp://www.ubu.com/film/snow_wavelength.html


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Hollis Frampton (1936-1984)

Poetic Justice (1972) 31:30 min 16mm Poetic Justice explores a "cinema of the mind", wherein the film takes place in the viewers' imagination(s)

as they read title cards. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9an96_hollis-frampton-poetic-justice-part_shortfilms?from=rss There is almost no change in the image but the story keeps changing. It is destabilizing, as it is not easy

to understand at first sight why Frampton makes us read so many pages in a film. If the whole idea wereto read the story, would it not be better to just give the audience the pages? Why bother to make themwatch it? All these questions reflect back to the fact that what is in front of us is not the reality but it is afilm. Reading a page is not the same as reading a page out of a film and with a similar reasoningwatching events unfold on the screen should not create the same reaction as witnessing the eventsthemselves. Again, Frampton expects us to become aware of the medium and reminds us the limits ofwhat cinema can be.

Beginning as a photographer, Framptons filmwork was generally concerned with concepts and thestructure of filmmaking itself. Other works focused on the relationship between sound and image.

Perhaps his other most famous works are; ZornsLemma ( 1970) 60 minutes 16mm (Mathematical title alluding to an axiom of disorder based on

the number 24, linking film speed to the letters of the Roman Alphabet. Shots of alphabet letters arereplaced by images.

http://www.ubu.com/film/frampton_zorns.html (nostalgia) (1971) 36 min 16mm
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9an96_hollis-frampton-poetic-justice-part_shortfilms?from=rsshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorns_Lemma_(film)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorns_Lemma_(film)http://www.ubu.com/film/frampton_zorns.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia_(film)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia_(film)http://www.ubu.com/film/frampton_zorns.htmlhttp://www.ubu.com/film/frampton_zorns.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorns_Lemma_(film)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorns_Lemma_(film)http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9an96_hollis-frampton-poetic-justice-part_shortfilms?from=rss


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Simplicity and Form

In his book Visionary film, P. Adams Sitney defines the structural film as acinema of structure in which the shape of the whole film is predetermined andsimplified, and it is that shape which is the primal impression of the film (348).

In an ordinary film, the form changes over time and the viewer spends his/herenergy to understand how the individual choices work to create a meaningfulwhole.

The different choices of camera angles and/or cuts have only significance aslong as they complement or oppose the flow of the film.

In a structural film, the form is so simple that the viewer does not have to spendmuch energy on understanding their place in the whole work. Usually, the ideasare repeated again and again so that it becomes a meditative process where theviewer starts thinking only about the choice made by the filmmaker that inSitneys terms can be called a simple shape. There can be no illusions ofreality as the shape attracts all the attention, making the content of secondary

importance. The fact that an illusion is created by a representation becomes the subject of

the film. This meditative process cannot be achieved if there is a story or manydifferent forms that viewer has to make connections with; there has to be asimple form.


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In Paul Sharits T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G The word destroywould go unnoticed if it were used once in asentence. However, when it is repeated over andover again our brain starts being tricked and we lose

the certainty on what the word is. This is verydestabilizing because we are used to understandingthe words so that we can put them in the context tomake a sense of the film. Although we hear the samesound; we hear many different words or phrases,most of them having violent meanings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihTynFLMy2Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihTynFLMy2Yhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihTynFLMy2Y


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The fact that the forms are simple can lead manypeople to think that it is easy to make structuralfilms. Once the idea is found, it usually really is easyto execute, unlike the films of Brakhage where the

director has to think about each cut so that the filmhas a deeper meaning as a whole. However, findingthe idea is exactly what constitutes the mostimportant part of the process through which the

structural films are created. Structural films arealmost always conceptual artworks where the actualexperience is the process of thinking about the filmand not just consuming what is on the screen.


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Ernie Gehr

Ernie Gehrs own films are perfect examples of how the mediumcan both make us think and create moving experiences despitethe fact that we are always aware that they are nothing but films.They question not only the representation and the film mediumbut also the perception itself.

In Shiftthat he made two years later, Gehr reveals again thevulnerability of our perception of perspective. The cars driving indifferent speeds in an auto park are shown in either usualperspective or upside down. In both images the white lines lookalike so much that whenever there are no cars on the screen wecannot be sure whether the image is the right side up or not.That encourages the audience to imagine a world where humanssaw things upside down. Eventually, they would be used to it andthey would be sure that that was the only realistic perception.

http://www.ubu.com/film/gehr_shift.html
http://www.ubu.com/film/gehr_shift.htmlhttp://www.ubu.com/film/gehr_shift.html


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Structural Film in Britain

Structural Film is the name that has been

attached to some of the work produced by

members of the London Filmmakers' Co-op

in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Modernistrather than post-Modern, it broadly combines

analysis of the structuring of perception with

an exploration of film's material components.


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Malcolm LeGrice Berlin Horse1970

9 minutes. Two film fragments provided Malcolm Le Grice with the materialfrom which to make Berlin Horse: 8mm home-movie footage shotby the artist near Berlin, and archive footage of a related subject.He weaves these together in repeating cycles of action, refilmingimages from the screen and colouring them, to heighten theviewer's awareness of film-time and the film-image.

This film is largely filmed with an exploration of the film mediumin certain aspects.

It is also concerned with making certain conceptions about timein a more illusory way than I have been inclined to explore inmany other of my films. It attempts to deal with some of the

paradoxes of the relationships of the "real" time which existswhen the film was being shot, with the "real" time which existswhen the film is being screened, and how this can be modulatedby technical manipulation of the images and sequences.


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Clouds 1969, 10 min, silent, b&w

"The anti-illusionist project engaged by Clouds is that of dialecticmaterialism. There is virtually nothing on screen, in the sense ofin screen. Obsessive repetition as materialist practice notpsychoanalytical indulgence." - PG (Nov 1975)

"Gidal's film Clouds establishes an awareness of position, aconfrontation, and it takes you back to you from the far reachesof eternal space the confrontation as with you." - Steve Dwoskin,Independent Cinema (1970)

Peter Gidal is both the chief theorist of the 1970s film avant-

garde, and its most austere image-maker. Clouds , which depictsjust sky and an occasional plane, keeps the viewer guessing asto whatif anything is moving?


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Summing Up

Many filmmakers lamented the definition of this period of film as Structuralist, asthey feared it would lead to an era of theory over practice. Structural film canoften be seen as the typical and pretentious definition of experimental film andthe successive decades did lead to over-theorising and conceptualism.Brakhagelamented that Structuralism was the worst thing to happen to Artists film.

Overall similarities in works can be defined by

Predetermination Often camera positions, numbers of frames, exposure,repetition are predetermined)

Focus on the structure of the film Interest in systems, maths, languages Flicker effect

Looping Re-photography Fixed camera position

a2 unit 3: art and the moving image - structuralism

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