POETRY BY DZIGA VERTOV AND ANATOLY MARIENHOF: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The article focuses on a comparative analysis of poems written by Dziga Vertov and Anatoly Marienhof. Despite the fact that the two poets were not acquainted and there is no documentary evidence of their mutual influence, they share a number of similarities in the development of their lives and artistic endeavours, in which the cultural and historical context of their era was reflected. The authors’ early writings share a common cutting technique. Montage became the main technique for describing both the rapidly changing reality of the post-revolutionary era and the fragmentation of the world and consciousness. That explains the duality of the protagonist and the appearance of the image of a buffoon. The similarity between Marienhof’s early poems and Vertov’s ones is also revealed in the predominant tragicomic tone, which is conditioned by the perception of the Revolution as a traumatic experience. Similarity can also be traced in the composition of images: it is cutting again that they use while organizing their metaphors (separate images are combined by thematic or associative links). In later works Marienhof and Vertov reevaluate their personal histories, using the antithesis of “now” and “then”, which shows a tragic turn in the lives of both artists. Apart from that, they turn from avant-garde poetic forms to more traditional ones. Thus, the article explores important stylistic, ideological, and biographical correlations in the work of two Russian avant-gardists.

Art, film and political action. Brief historiographic review of the ideas of Bolshevik filmmakers: Dziga Vertov and D’Alexandre Medvedkine.

This article is an approach to the experiences of two Bolshevik filmmakers: Dziga Vertov and D’Alexandre Medvedkine. It is a first, historiographic study that is woven, in the first place, with the primary sources of the films and the published testimonies of both filmmakers, to read them from some of the most important references that I located. They are germinal experiences that were forged at the time of the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, sometimes it is necessary to bring them back to account and review them again, to understand some keys about trends and expressions that are observed in contemporary audiovisual proposals.

La La determinación social de la imagen cinemática en el arte de la Primera Vanguardia. Gerardo Diego y Joris Ivens, un caso de analogía fílmico-poética

El presente artículo señala la determinación social de la imagen cinemática como causa directa de la analogía entre las diferentes artes durante el periodo de la Primera Vanguardia. En particular, se profundiza en la reciprocidad expresiva del Cine y la Poesía Nueva que confirman numerosas aportaciones teóricas y prácticas, como las del poeta ultraísta Guillermo de Torre o las del cineasta surrealista Luis Buñuel. Asimismo, se demuestra la conveniencia de aplicar los conceptos de cine-ojo (1919) y cine-verdad (1922), del director ruso Dziga Vértov, y el de cine mental (1989), del escritor italiano Italo Calvino para explicar los fundamentos estéticos y poiéticos de esta ósmosis, que la lectura comparada final del poema creacionista “Lluvia” del español Gerardo Diego y la película homónima del holandés Joris Ivens demuestra.

Organ and Machinery Projections in Florensky’s Philosophy and Vertov’s Cinematography

My article is dedicated to the Kapp’s theory of organ projections in the first half of the XX century in Russia. I research that the philosopher P. Florensky and the filmmaker Dziga Vertov made the changes to this theory and linked it with the definition of machinery projections purposes and limits. Florensky’s has a goal to analyze new sides of life in an organism by machinery projections. The method of it is the made by a man transference of the functions and contours of technology to an organism. A man thinks about the specificity of an organism and does not allow thinking about it as only less qualitatively working mecha­nism. Vertov has a goal to observe disadvantages of a human organism and reject them via creating of a new man by machinery projections. According to Vertov’s purpose the technology presents an organism as a mechanism via the algorithm of observing and designing. I explain how these conceptions may be useful for researching in the field of bioinformatics and biomedical engineering.

Mediateka Babel. YouTube jako temat, rama formalna i platforma sztuki

The text focuses on the specific features of the so-called 'cinematic turn' within the scope of visual culture emergent within the YouTube platform, particularly during its first, formative years. This turn takes place on the meta-level of the existing circulation of content enabled by YouTube, often being an autothematic reflection on this tool of cultural production. The vernacular aesthetics, a specific formal framework and a particular modus operandi of YouTube became the subject of artistic statements, sometimes in a form of subversive remix. Therefore I think of YouTube as a realm of art because of its meta-media practice that made the cinematic turn visible. It does not rely on straightforwardly understood production of (moving) images, but postproduction, as understood by Nicolas Bourriaud. Moreover, the cinematic turn taking place within YouTube is different from the one practised by the avant-garde of 20th century, due its being not “seeing” or “writing” (as Dziga Vertov understood montage) but rather “overwriting”, to use language more adequate to the described sphere of digital culture. Artists use YouTube as an open library, working with its resources, applying techniques such as postproduction, remix, re-contextualisation and appropriation. Therefore it becomes a multimedia library, a “Mediateca Babel” of a kind, to recall J. L. Borges' idea. The examples mentioned in the text are of a postproductional nature, such as to-camera-performance and subversive “overwriting” of contents enabled with the circulationism typical for social media. Equally important are the strategies of recognising the cultural framework of YouTube, in the context of 20th-century media art history, as well as the platform’s interface. Also, there is the issue of relations between vernacular creativity and the art system because of “capturing” the amateur-generated content and transferring it to mainstream artworld. These examples let me argue that the cinematic turn is a form of postproduction, which enables the hidden mechanisms behind the circulation of moving images in the overloaded global network. The cinematic turn in the context of YouTube does not mean that cinema and its language are at home within this platform. Also, the meta-artistic way of “making” platform art does not turn YouTube into “art platform” (as understood by Olga Goriunova). Nevertheless, platform art may happen in this context as a result of working with the cinematic turn in its vernacular aspect, which makes it possible to reveal its key features and move them to the meta-level.

Visualizing Vertov

Este ensaio, escrito por Lev Manovich, debate dois filmes de Dziga Vertov através de técnicas para visualização de dados. Manovich argumenta que aquele desejo de Vertov por uma “linguagem gráfica” antecipou o trabalho recente de artistas visuais e designers que utilizam a análise computacional e a computação gráfica para visualizar padrões em obras artísticas. Ainda, como uma resposta digital ao que Vertov teorizou como Cine-Olho, o trabalho de Manovich explora como as novas técnicas de visualização podem nos auxiliar a compreendermos diferentemente o cinema, revelando padrões e dimensões que são impossíveis ou difíceis de se estudar através dos métodos estabelecidos nas análises cinematográficas. Manovich então revela toda uma nova ciência e estéti- ca do cinema através de conjuntos de dados, mapas, padrões e gráficos que se encontra latente na imagem da película.

Distancias. Hacia un régimen estético-político de la imagen-movimiento = Distances. Towards an Aesthetic and Political Image-Movement Regime

Se interpelan las tensiones en las distancias entre sentidos estéticos y discursos políticos a partir de analizar las revoluciones técnicas y estéticas que se produjeron en la cinematografía de la década de 1920. Para ello se analizan tres largometrajes: Metrópolis, de Fritz Lang (1927), Berlín. Sinfonía de una ciudad, de Walter Ruttmann (1927) y El hombre de la cámara, de Dziga Vértov (1929). En ellos la ciudad se presenta como escenario donde los cuerpos se mueven, narrado por un conjunto de imágenes cuyo montaje se proyecta como el compás armónico de un régimen estético-político de la imagen-movimiento. En el hiato entre educar con la mirada y educar la mirada se trasluce la distancia entre lo que Jacques Rancière denomina como la «estética de la política» y la «política de la estética». Lo cual, confrontándolo con Walter Benjamin, posibilita observar las distancias entre imágenes, entre técnicas, entre originalidades y reproducciones, entre la estética y la política.AbstractThe aim is to analyze the distances between aesthetic senses and political speeches by technical and aesthetical cinematography revolutions happened in the 1920s. This is observed at three feature films: Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), Berlin. Symphony of a Metropolis (Walter Ruttmann, 1927) and The Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vértov, 1929). At those films the city is exhibited as a scenario where bodies are moving, narrated by a set of images whose assembly is projected as the harmonic compass of an aesthetic-political regime of the image-movement. In the hiatus between educating with the gaze and educating the gaze itself, the distance between what Jacques Rancière called as the «aesthetics of politics» and the «politics of aesthetics» is studied. Confronting this with Walter Benjamin’s theory, it is possible to observe the distances between images, between techniques, between originality and reproduction and between aesthetics and politics.