Page 41 - Studio International - July August 1975

as creative activity — or should be. Both and the co-operative society would need this essay that the history of Western
Moholy and Benjamin believed that the to promote a less exclusively academic painting was a 'technological detour',
most effective art in an age of increasing and one-sided form of intelligence by and that pigment was a poor substitute
mechanization was one that could prompt ensuring that there was room for the for the direct use of coloured light. (He
an active response, rather than provide individual to exist outside any later predicted that the art schools of the
an arena for passive contemplation. specialization of function enforced in the future would, by the same token, be
Benjamin was to point to the demands name of progress. Russia was not the Academies of Light.) His new
posed by the new medium of film, the ideal model: the conveyor-belt formulation seems to have been designed
shock effect 'which, like all shocks, principle which in Moholy's view to tighten the thesis of his Bauhaus book
should be cushioned by heightened epitomized the atomization of skills most of the previous year, Painting Photography
presence of mind' 18. But Moholy, who horrifically, was being promoted in Film: he had a vested interest in
had advocated 'dynamic' (and kinetic) post-revolutionary Russia just as avidly reworking the theme of this book,
forms with the same shock effect in as in the West. because it provided a framework for the
mind", went a stage further: he did not In short, where Moholy's approach direction his own work was taking. The
conceive of the effect of art on the public diverges most fundamentally from point of departure for Painting
as 'heightened presence of mind' alone. Benjamin's is in playing down the Photography Film had been the
He was more interested in breaking down distinction between the creative conjecture that the advent of
the barriers between 'artists' and 'public' (`productive') activity of the artist and the photography had necessarily freed
than in the niceties of theoretical heightened presence of mind of the painting from its representational
distinctions, and what he meant by the public. The accent is on the function of function: painting would now be able to
statement on visual literacy quoted by creativity itself. For an artist — like fulfil its purpose by pure colour
Benjamin was that if photography is to Moholy himself — to produce work which composition." Given that the use of
revolutionize vision, it will do so above could help to foster a heightened visual pigment was a 'technological detour',
all by prompting people to try it out for awareness of the environment was one then direct projection of coloured light —
themselves, to use it for purposes other side of it. Even more important was the demanding 'productive' use of the new
than the (reproductive) recording of the pedagogic side, if that is not too restrictive technology— could fulfil the same
picturesque or the anecdotal. Just as a word : providing a more positive biological needs. Since, according to
literacy involves writing as well as framework for other people to tap their Moholy, kinetic light projection would
reading, so visual 'literacy' in the age of own potentials, to find compatible means require a more alert and differentiated
the visual mass media involves of expression for themselves. Moholy's response from the observer", it was
more than looking20. writings belong in this category just as his likely to fulfil these universal needs more
The implication of Moholy's teaching does : right from the early adequately than painting, though he
programme was not simply that a suggestion that composers should try conceded that static colour composition
`productive' approach, in whatever scratching a master disc for replication as would retain its validity. Painting was a
medium, was more likely to produce gramophone records, they are full of good medium, Moholy felt, for trying
fresh and vital results than an projects and throw-away ideas which things out in; but technology had thrown
academic training within a traditional he can hardly have expected to follow up a wealth of alternatives which were
medium, nor that it could transcend through himself. He obviously regarded likely in the long run to prejudice its
the accepted distinctions between fine and his own work as part of the same exclusive status, with the result that
applied art. Both these factors were corporate enterprise as his writing and `in future periods only the man who
obviously important to him, but the most teaching; whilst he included several of produces sovereign and uncompromising
far-reaching function of 'productive' his photograms in the 1925 Bauhaus works will be able to become and remain
activity, the do-it-yourself approach, was book translated as Painting Photography a PAINTER' 23.
not production at all in the material Film, he also reproduced two of Man Photography and its derivatives
sense of actually coming up with the Ray's. Benjamin saw that it was the mass promised to be the most far-reaching of
goods. The questions whether the end media which were revolutionizing the these alternatives. Having located the
results of such activity could qualify for function of art; Moholy, following the basis of the photographic process in the
the status of Art, or could be put to impetus of the short-lived productivist light-sensitivity of a chemical emulsion,
practical use, were of secondary enterprise in Russia, was already Moholy's own investigation of the
importance. Like other artists involved pushing the consequences in the medium had started out from the action
with Berlin Constructivism or the direction of a radical democratization of light on the emulsion direct. In other
Bauhaus, Moholy preferred the German of art and the integration of the artist words, he had for the time being
term Gestaltung (a noun meaning within the fabric of society. dispensed with the mediating optics of
forming, or any formal means of II. the camera lens. The first photograms
expression; by extension, creative In an exuberantly futurist of 1922 were made by laying objects, flat
activity in general) to the qualitatively proclamation published in 1926, Moholy or three-dimensional, opaque or
more absolute concept of Art. For proposed a new formula to supersede transparent, solid or open-textured, on
creativity and inventiveness were not the the more limiting 'Production- daylight paper (printing-out paper) 2 7 .
prerogative of the self-styled artist or Reproduction' antithesis of 1922. The The objects would cast shadows or
the professional designer: Moholy's title of the new manifesto has been reflect light across the surface; they
whole aesthetic is predicated on the translated as 'Directness of the Mind; (or the light source) could be moved
assumption that they are latent in every Detours of Technology'. Moholy's new during exposure; the light might be
normally-endowed individual". His emphasis (later taken over wholesale by diffused or directed, and lenses or
emphasis on 'productive' creativity is a McLuhan) was on the way technology liquids could be used to concentrate or
function of his conviction that the level lags behind its potential because of the refract the light. The result (visible on
of awareness generated by fostering this persistence of thought categories based this kind of paper before chemical
creativity would prove to be the most on older technologies23. An example: processing) was a new kind of
effective weapon available to combat `Detours of technology: current photographic space, ambiguous, devoid
the alienating effects of living and working attempts to look at planets and stars of references to conventional
under a capitalist system of production, through larger and larger lenses, perspective, and defined by the
and that it would be the mainspring of any instead of working on electromagnetic modulation of light values from pure
viable alternative to this system : photographic impulses. Prediction: white (where no light had reached the
`NOT THE PRODUCT, BUT MAN, all observatories will become paper) through a spectrum of greys to
IS THE END IN VIEW". Moholy obsolete, because they are equipped deep black where the strongest light had
felt that the equalization of resources with traditional technology.' been concentrated for longest 2 8. The
within a society built up on a co-operative Starting out from the assumption that photogram worked with a highly
basis would not, of itself, be able to the use of pigment in painting differentiated spectrum which is
guarantee a more satisfying mode of `established the concept of colour as a otherwise hard to isolate, given normal
existence. He regarded individual sort of light terminus, crassly material', lighting and normal colour vision, and
wholeness as of paramount importance, Moholy was able to convince himself in the cultivation of subtle relationships

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