Page 62 - Studio International - November December 1975

AVANT-GARDE FILM IN

AUSTRIA: CURRENT

ACTIVITIES

Peter Weibel

SHORT (HI)STORY film (Rainer, 1960), has got 250,000 Austrian schillings
Since 1945 Austria has produced two generations of for his project Body Language which Kubelka is likewise
artists concerned with experimental cinema. The first filming. Ernst Schmidt got 500,000 schillings for his
generation (1951-63) consists of Herbert Vesely, project Vienna, Weibel 500,000 (around £12,000) for
Curt Stenvert, Ferry Radax, Peter Kubelka, Kurt Kren and Kernkodifikate, and Export 600,000 for the project
Marc Adrian'. These film-makers did not form a group, Invisible Adversaries.
but worked isolated from each other, although Radax
and Kubelka worked together on Mosaik im Vertrauen STATE OF ART
(1955). The only avant-garde film-makers in the strict The most important contribution of the first generation
sense were Radax, Kubelka, Kren and Adrian, the others to the practice and theory of avant-garde cinema was the
after their experimental beginnings in a post- development of a cinema of structure — as it was called
surrealist, symbolic or existential vein soon drifting to later—by Peter Kubelka and Kurt Kren. Since Malcolm
commercial TV or film productions. The works of Le Grice is writing on Kren in this issue of Studio
Kubelka and Kren alone had an influence on the next International and since Kubelka was the first, I will
generation of film-makers (1964-71) 2 who have co- concentrate on Kubelka. Both men adopted serial
operated in a spirit more politically in keeping with the methods to edit very minimal units of frames, Kubelka
times. In 1968 Ernst Schmidt jr., Hans Scheugl, Peter especially lavishing his attention on single frames.
Weibel, Kurt Kren, Valie Export and Gottfried Schlemmer Rejecting the illusion of motion in the cinema, he sees
founded the Austrian film-makers' co-operative, which film as the projection of still frames. 'My economy is one
joined Otto Muehl, Guenter Brus and Otto Bauer. single frame. And the same with sound'. He treats the
Gottfried Bechthold and Hermann Hendrich also frame in the same way as dodecaphone musicians do the
belonged to this second generation of experimental tone. It is worth noting how much his methods owe to
film-makers. Kren linked these two generations. The Anton Webern. Just as Webern reduced music to the
first culminates at the end of the fifties, the second at the interval and the single tone, emancipating the pause as a
end of the sixties. The co-op became the Kuratorium musical element, so Kubelka reduced film to the single
neuer österreichischer Film on a broader basis, but frame and the interval between two frames, the sync
after some trials on grounds of obscenity ; the emigration event emancipating the black frame as an element of
of several film-makers ; the general decline of the composition. As Webern composed with his serial
revolutionary culture movement; and the dissolution of methods (permutation, negative repetition,
the Kuratorium in 1971, the film scene became very combinatory, 'krebs' etc) structures that were not
calm at the beginning of the seventies. Since there was no continuous in the traditional sense of music, so Kubelka
financial or other support, and no opportunity to show composed structures in film with serial methods
films, a retreat into theory took place. ('architecture in time between light and darkness' in
Weibel, assisted by Export, published a picture manual Rainer, 1960) that were not fixed on continuous motion,
on Viennese actionism and avant-garde film (Wien, 1970, but syncopated. Growing up in a musical family, and
Kohlkunst Verlag, Frankfurt), which landed him in court. familiar with the methods of music, he developed a strict
And in 1973 Schlemmer published an international combination 3 of algebra and music in his films
anthology of theoretical works on avant-garde film : Adebar, 1957, and Schwechater, 1958. The
Avantgardistischer Film 1951-1971: Theorie, Munich,
Hanser Verlag. Scheugl published two works the 1974
ShOw Freaks & Monster (together with Felix Adanos),
Dumont Verlag, Cologne, and Sexualität und Neurose im
Film, 1974, Hanser Verlag, Munich. Schmidt jr. and
Scheugl published the first international history of
avant-garde film in the form of a 1,300 page dictionary :
Subgeschichte des Films, 2 volumes, 1974, Suhrkamp,
Frankfurt. Weibel's introduction explains the title and
argues that the sub-history of film is the true history of
film. The authors worked on this huge book from 1969.
Today this period of depression, theoretical labour and
historical orientation seems over and prospects are more
favourable. In 1972 Peter Kubelka got 600,000
Austrian schillings (around £15,000) from the
Ministry of Education and Art for his work in progress,
Monument for the Old World. Since then the Ministry,
under the socialist minister Sinowatz, has formed a film
jury which declared its support for 'projects which show Peter Kubelka Arnulf Rainer 1960
film as an autonomous medium'. This jury did not give all
its money to dull cultural or commercial products as was emancipation of the darkness (black frame) and clear
the custom in the past, but generously supported those serial techniques led to Rainer, 1960 : almost a
who have worked for the development of film as an art 'handmade' computer film, because he made by hand all
medium. Out of 19 million Austrian schillings, 2.5 the calculations and combinations of white and black
millions went to the avant-garde. This seems to be a frames, tone and pause, which a computer would
unique step in Europe and worthy of imitation. It is to be usually make. In preliminary exercises he investigated
hoped that this attitude towards film will continue. the possible combination of these four elements for
Arnulf Rainer, about whom Kubelka has already done one different frame units, eg the eight possible
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