Page 56 - Studio International - November December 1975

Sixteen frames from Western Reversal 1973

the flux of film and water has finally conquered both into My work also exists as a critique of that other triad of the
stillness. filmic/art situation —artist, work, spectator. A negation, a
subversion of the artist's traditional role is involved ;
images are deprived of autonomy, forced back on the
In attempting in a few thousand words to describe a means that produce them ; the spectator is frustrated of
body of work extending over six years, one is confronted his expectations, encouraged to see the work not as a
by a fundamental dilemma : how can one do justice both framed slice of 'reality', but as a device for posing
to its prolific variety and to its rigorous coherence ? The certain questions about communication through images'
result, inevitably, is a compromise. Where a body of work (Art and Artists, Dec. 1972, p. 26). One can work
is known to a wide public it is easier to pass from a actively for the dominant ideology of dream-selling
description of variety to an analysis of coherence. Where (advertising, 'pre-packed' entertainment), collude in it
that body of work is known only to a relatively small (fail to be aware or pretend that one isn't), or attempt to
public and then, at best, in an imperfect and fragmented demystify it. Not only the 'art work', but the 'artist'
way, it seems to me that the greater priority is himself must be the object of such a demystification. He
description. Even then, more works have been left is no longer to be regarded as a hidden god, a subject-
unmentioned than have been described. But I hope I have who-is-supposed-to-know, represented metaphorically
employed a form of description that allows the coherence by a revered object, one plenitude standing for another—
of the whole oeuvre to emerge of itself. The relation of an aesthetic goose that lays golden eggs to be valued and
that oeuvre to those of other artists now working, and to collected. In Dye's work the artist is fully present, as in
what precisely our culture is doing in giving rise to such the performance pieces, or represented metonymically in
work, are fundamental questions that we cannot and the work itself — by head, hand, feet, photograph, name,
should not avoid, but which are obviously outside the camera or projector. Such a self-awareness is to be found
scope of this article. In case I am thought to be evading in one way or another in all the radical art, music and
the question altogether, however, a few elliptical, literature of the present. Our culture as a whole has
unsubstantiated assertions may be permitted. attained an unprecedented degree of self-awareness :
Perhaps the most obvious feature of Dye's work —and never has the here and now been so permeated by the
the one it shares with that of many artist/film-makers— is there and then. Western capitalism has swept all before
its refusal to purvey 'illusion.' 'I feel something like it : cultures that have lasted for centuries are dismantled
nausea for the rich diet of images that are served up for in a few years. As a spin-off from their raw materials, we
our constant consumption,' he has written. 'We are living have their art objects. Soldier, trader, missionary,
in a camera/image saturated age. What has drawn me to administrator, anthropologist follow in turn. We learn
film is not the image and all its expressive possibilities ; last. In the end it devours its own culture. More properly
my concern is with the filmic situation as a whole, we are living in an epi-culture, a cross between a factory
stripped down to its basic components, with its and a museum. Any culture — what's left of it—can be
imagistic illusion torn away. From being the unseen bought. We can consume it in the comfort of our own
producers of the image, camera, projector and screen home or a visit can be arranged. In either case it will be
themselves become the object of the image — cameraman packaged. No wonder we find it difficult to say anything.
faces mirror, a projector projects an image of itself onto An epi-culture requires a meta-art.
itself, images of a screen are projected onto that screen. Today's art must be critical and self-critical. But if it is
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