Page 54 - Studio-International-January-1974

David Visitors to the exhibition were of text ; each demands a form of cinema, is complicated by mutual
concentration to be fully understood.
presented with an analysis of
eclecticism. The influence of artists on
information they already held, where The text has a linear structure, with the cinema is also the influence of film
Lamelas: they came from and the gallery in the photograph the reader has to and photography upon artists. The
which they were standing. The same
define his own structure, there are no
familiarity and wealth of cinematic
film was also shown at the grammatical rules. A photograph and images has established the use of
an introduction to the Konzeption; Conception exhibition in a film have a syntax and morphology film conventions within an art
Leverkusen, where the change of as complex as any sentence or article. context. Cinema is fundamentally a
structural development location made the film documentation It is their immediacy that has made form of entertainment, the viewer
The continuity of David Lamelas's rather than an actual work. visual structures less sophisticated responds to particular aspects, the
work comes from the diversity of The analysis of information than linguistic structures. Lamelas's creative imagination of the film-
primary sources rather than stylistic developed into a concern with the films attempt to produce a grammar makers, the camera mechanics, the
devices of subject and image. The relationship between time and vision. which is self referential with the story and the actors. He is not asked
continuity emerges from the For the second 'Prospect' in 1969, structure. The subject of the film is a to question the conventions and
development of an intelligible three different views of Düsseldorf metaphor for our ability to establish a language of films. It is the task of the
structure, through which the viewer were filmed for four minutes. The conscious visual grammar. camera to think for him. The
analyses his personal response to images were all familiar to people in Filmscript, which was made in sophistication of contemporary
visual information. Image and Düsseldorf, but with the camera 1972, involves a translation from the cinema and the passive roll of the
structure are totally re-thought at the remaining constant for four minutes commercial cinema. The film viewer allows time and reality to be
start of each new work, they are they were presented with a new view represents any scene from any film, it read completely as the film-maker
depersonalized to avoid all external which demanded more intense implies action but not information. intends.
connotations, except that of self concentration. Several similar works The actions are very simple, walking in A major distinction in the two
reference. were made over a short period in the park, driving, and moving around a interpretations of modernism is that
In an attempt to illustrate this point, Brussels, Antwerp and Milan but the room. The film was shown with three the cinema has remained figurative
the following description deliberately next real change occurred in sets of slides of the same series of but 'modern art' has become
emphasizes the formation of the Interview — with Marguerite Duras, images. The slides detail and synonymous with abstraction. The
structure rather than the subjective made in Paris. The work was a five- emphasize the images the film difficulty of Lamelas's work comes
details, which distinguish each minute filmed interview with ten still expands. Slides also have the from the fusion of the two disciplines.
individual work. photographs and taped phrases from possibility of flexible time, which is in The fusion is, however, one-sided, the
Lamelas's early work was produced significant moments. Marguerite opposition to the consecutive order of decision that the work should be a
in Argentina between 1966 and 1968 Duras represented an important films. In London the slides were film is taken relatively late in the
(Art and Artists, July 1969). A aspect of Parisian mentality at that shown at a different speed to the film, working process. The continuity
predominant interest was in the time, one which hinged upon the way actions took place in the slides before comes from the ideas, not the medium.
similarity of thought represented in she thought rather than the subjects and after they occurred in the film. In Secondly the context in which the
disciplines as diverse as philosophy, she chose to discuss. A similar Milan they were shown at the same films are shown allows them to be
psychology, literature and the visual attitude applies to 'Publication', the speed. This was an important change read as objects, rather than the
arts. This interest provided an book published by Nigel Greenwood which affected the function of time in traditional reading of films as a form
analytical background which in 1971. Too much emphasis has been the work and was developed by the which contains images. The work
approached the problems then placed upon the statements in the next film Cumulative Script. The film is belongs to the modernist tradition,
presented by minimal art. Through the book. The question of language is divided into six sections. The first part but more in the historical sense than in
isolation of technical forms from any explicit because it is the subject of the is shown, then repeated as the the current 'conceptual' category. The
external content the work suggested a texts, but the importance is the introduction to the next sequence. use of photography and film in recent
non-descriptive and non-physical art context, not the subject. 'Publication' The second part is then repeated and art has consisted of two main
form. implied a syllogistic form ; the book leads into the third sequence and so categories, documentation and
These works developed towards an was the exhibition but the exhibition on. The repetition is dictated by the illustration. The importance of the
analysis of information, how people was the actual work. Similarly the sequence of events and is not exact. structure has led to the belief that an
read a situation and its content. The subject of the book was 'oral and The influence of the commercial image chosen to illustrate a prescribed
Office of Information About the written language as an art form', cinema is evident in both films in the idea can fulfil that singular role. The
Vietnam War, shown at the Venice which also dictated the structure of construction of an obvious sequence fact that images have connotations
Biennale in 1968, was not intended as the piece as a book. of events. The events are distorted, not which are subjected to personal
a political comment. It contained After 'Publication' the function of through the filming but through the experience is overlooked. These
political information but also language became incorporated in the manipulation of repetition, firstly in problems are central to Lamelas's
presented a theory of information, work, a decision which was marked by the slides and then in the film itself. work; rather than answering them, he
through which the limited context of the two Reading films. The first was a The reduction which eliminated questions the demands which can be
the Biennale could be compared with passage from Jorge Luis Borges's'A language after the Reading films is placed on the viewer. The films are a
the preconceptions people held about New Dimension of Time'. The choice paralleled by the elimination of human conversation between the artist and
the information available in that of Borges strengthened the action in To Pour Milk into a Glass. the viewer, the abstracted structure
atmosphere. implication that the film was a mirror- The camera position is constant allows the conversation to remain
A more explicit analysis of image of the person watching it. A throughout the film. In the first shot open-ended. In conversation a person
information was given in the work very Borgian idea. The second film the glass is empty. In the second shot says many things which are only
shown at the first 'Prospect', in 1968. took a text from 'Knots' by Ronald the empty glass is gradually filled to relevant to the specific conversation,
Six hours of radio programmes were Laing. Both films are an analysis of the rim. The third shot repeats the first they do not relate to the subjects of
divided into three categories, news, reading, but not just reading a text. two, until the milk overflows. the conversation. The films are about
publicity and music. The information One also reads people, situations and Gradually the information is built up, that area of communication. The only
structure was then applied to a visual information. The films reflect extending the viewer's ability to read, definitive statement is the visual
collection of all available printed two ways of handling the same repetition representing memory. The response and individual
information on 'Prospect'. Thirdly, a problem. There are no distinctions total simplicity, almost banality, of the understanding of the viewer.
short film repeated continuously a made between the two writers, only images is intentional. The aim is to find Lynda Morris
simple everyday activity. The three between the responses the writers an image which is the equivalent of
sections set up a dialogue between produce. The difference between the one word, or one action —a total self-
audio, written and visual information two films is one of understanding and containment. The reality of a language
plus a sub-structure of subjective that is also how the films connect. The description is different from the reality David Lamelas was born in Argentina
changes. The news cuttings on term translation applies to disciplines of a seen image but they both in 1945. He came to Europe in 1968
'Prospect' provided a self referential other than language. In the Reading represent part of the same reality. The and now lives in London. He has
form which was developed in A Study films the form of translation is work attempts to bring the language shown with Nigel Greenwood in
of the Relationship Between Inner and between the activity of language and of the film and the representation of London, Yvon Lambert in Paris,
Outer Space, shown at the Camden the symbology of language. In the the film to the same point. Francoise Lambert in Milan and Wide
Arts Centre. The film analysed the more recent films language is not The relationship between films Wide Space in Antwerp and
area in which the exhibition was held used but they have retained the need made as an art work and those made Brussels. He is to have an exhibition
as inner space, and the general to be read, not watched. Facing within the conventional context, either et Jack Wendler's Gallery, London,
context of London as outer space. this page is a photograph and a block in the commercial or avant-garde in the New Year.
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