Syndicate: text

["Ryszard W. Kluszczynski" <rwk@krysia.uni.lodz.pl>]

Hi. In the coming days I will be mailing some texts of mine concerning
(multi)media art and culture. To avoid problems with opening it I will be
sending each text twice: in the main mesage and as an attachment.
Regards,
RWK

Ryszard W. Kluszczynski

Trans-media Art. On the Art of Ryszard Wasko

Art of the seventies causes different reactions nowadays. However, opinions
concerning it too often result not from scrupulous studies, but from
individual, extremely subjective views or even preferences. Some critics,
connected spiritually with the paradigm of the sixties, constructed from
very selectively (or too selectively, I should say) chosen elements, reject
the different, radical, "not elegant" and iconoclastic works of the
artists, who shaped the art of the next decade. Alas, they do not do it in
a way that would clearly state that they prefer one kind of art over
another because it is, for some reasons which could be verbalized, closer
to them, but instead they claim that only the first one is real avant-garde
art, while the second one is worthless. Such lack of respect for the
critical workshop does not let us treat these opinions seriously. Other
critics discredit the art of the seventies for political reasons, claiming
that the artists of that decade gave an alibi to the quasi-modernist
ideology proclaimed by the political leaders at that time. However, one
cannot accept those views; either, as they deconstruct themselves: more
often than not their supporters gained their knowledge and education in
that very same decade they criticize, which leads to the conclusion that
neither their knowledge nor their scholarly abilities are reliable. And let
us not forget that studying diligently(?) in the seventies they allowed our
political administration to create a false image of Poland as a modern
country with a highly educated society. But, seriously speaking, one should
observe that all such opinions are formed regardless of any deeper studies
of the decade, i.e. without factual knowledge of Polish art in the nineteen
seventies, of its important and lasting achievements in the Polish artistic
reality. 
There is an urgent need to recognize this artistic period in Poland and to
verify too many hastily formed opinions - we need to lay solid foundations
for future syntheses. Many important exhibitions have not as yet found
their organizers, many important artistic accomplishments are still waiting
for their discoverers, and many artists for their monographs. We are near
the end of the century, the time for final summaries is arriving, and no
history of modern Polish art will be able to do without an adequate,
faithful presentation of the seventies. 
Ryszard Wasko is one of those artists whose creative attitude was shaped in
the nineteen seventies. His work was a part of that decade and helped to
form Polish art in the following years. Unconventionality and radicality of
his works is still a challenge to modern art historians because they demand
equally unconventional methods of interpretation. A scholar analyzing
artistic events in Poland of the last twenty five years, who might try to
describe and interpret Wasko's work by placing it in the space marked by
any of the artistic genre categories, would have to admit quickly that such
an attempt is completely futile. Wasko's works are not limited to any of
the artistic genres he uses because they easily cross the borders between
them: And his individual realizations, even if they reamin  - due to the
materials used and some general genre manifestations - within a certain
kind of art, they still cannot be explained by referring to the
characteristics of that branch of art which is realized in them. On the
contrary, quite often the fundamental principles which make up the
structure of the artefacts come from a different branch of art than the one
in which the works were actually created and where we would be inclined to
place them.
This suggestion leads us to a hypothesis, which I shall try to develop in
this essay, that the character of Ryszard Wasko's work in general, as well
as the character of his individual works, is often defined by
inter-generic, inter-media relations. Those works set in motion a whole net
of intertextual relations on the level of general structural and
ontological determinants, and on the level of different types of perception
and rules of interpretation. In other words, in order to grasp a work which
belongs to a certain artistic genre in its specificity, one should refer to
its non-specific features which are characteristic for another kind of art. 
Another hypothesis I would also like to explain here says that if a work by
Ryszard Wasko belongs to a different kind of art than film, it is precisely
film which plays the role of the intertext with regard to the work. In such
a case we might also want to examine how the process of intertextual
references is realized with regard to films.
As the rust example let us take a photograph, or rather a photographic
construction called The Accident (a police record) from 1971. This work
transgresses the standard of a photographic presentation through the
multiplication of the picture. But it is not the most important fact here.
Not one of the individual photographs making up the whole work presents the
whole of the title event - they show only particular details. But putting
those fragmentary presentations together also does not form the whole
picture. The potential whole here is a mental image, a notion. We do not
see the photograph from a definite, external position, which may be
considered to be a perception perspective specific for this medium, but,
like film viewerswe are placed within the world presented. Our looks are
not located or fixed in one point, but they are subordinated to the edited
structure and thus they move from one place to another. But unlike in the
case of a film this change of the vantage point is not developed in a
linear way - it moves in many directions and it is not limited in time. In
a film we have to do with a few time levels: the level of the time of the
film itself, the level of time of the presented world (diegetic time), and
the time of perception. The Accident using cinematographic conventions
places them within the temporal order of photography, where we actually
have to do only with the time of perception. This is where the aspect of
infinite presentation characteristic for this work and its static-dynamic
order spring from.
Many other photographic works consisting of many elements and created in
the first half of the seventies in a similar, but not identical way,
transcends the determinants of the medium. From O° to 180° (1971) is a
photograph which joins into one a series of pictures that somehow represent
the movement of a human bead being raised from the earth to the sky by
means of a constant, linear movement of the point of view of the camera.
Movement is also inherent in the structure of a series of works entitled A
Four-dimensional Photograph (all from 1972). In the first work six
horizontally placed photographs presenting a city landscape reveal the
growing disturbance (motion) which is introduced into the static photograph
by movement and thus - by the element of time. In the second work of the
series an abstract graphic element - a line, which replaced the
representation of an object - undergoes the same process that was described
above.
In a few other photographic works which came into being in the middle of
the decade Wasko continued to manipulate spatial structures in relation to
the perception process. Reduction - Enlargement - Attempt (1975) or The
Listing of Space Using Numbers 1-8 (Attempt II), created in 1976, are
examples of other works in which multiple photographic systems situate the
observer in a sequence of ever changing vantage points, but always in the
same space. The viewer is usually placed within the world he observes, not
in some distant, external position. And always - as in the works discussed
above - the overall vision is created by the imagination of the observer;
it is not simply the object of his vision.
All the works described until now are characterized by a deconstructive
attitude towards the medium in which they are created - i.e. photography,
whose borders and determinants are problematized, but the works still
remain within the limits of the medium. It is possible mainly due to the
fact that the deconstruction of photography takes place using the
attributes of the film medium which is a development of the medium of
photography. Film determinants, such as time and movement, disturb and
transform the photographic order of Wasko's works. The intertextual
connection of photography and film deconstructs the former, defining at the
same time the character of individual works.
This character is different in works where photography is elongated and
transformed by drawings. A Hypothetical Photograph (1977) is a series of
illustrations, the first one of which is a photograph: a city landscape
that changes into an abstract form by means of a drawing (contour lines are
drawn around objects, creating "diagrams") projected in a series of nine
other illustrations. The deconstruction of photography turns to abandonment
of photography in this work. In Enlargement - a work created one year
earlier - graphic structures enter into the structure of photography
disturbing the relation of representation. The origins of this kind of
experiments may be found in a work from 1972 called The "n" Chair. The
photograph used in this work was also disassembled and transformed into an
abstract arrangement.
In all the discussed works we can also observe a conflicting tension
between artistic and meta-artistic language. The energy released in this
reaction possesses both a deconstructive and cognitive aspect. The object
of Wasko's deconstructive analysis is the nature of the medium. In the case
of photography we have to do with the problems of relation between the
picture-representation, the object and reality. All the symptoms of
meta-artistic reflection accompany the intertextual discourse which builds
a system of various inter-media relations. Together they form a net of
references, derivations and transgressions determining the situation of art
remaining in the process of constant border transgression, art which
constantly rejects its old spheres and forms, art which rejects itself.
In the seventies besides photography Ryszard Wasko was also interested in
film-making. He was one of the first members of the Film Form Workshop, the
most important formation of avant-garde cinema in post-war Poland. The
group was founded in 1970 by the graduates (teachers) and students of the
Film School in Lodz. In spite of its cinematic origins and its name the
Film Form Workshop possessed a decidedly polymorphic nature, as the members
of the group were not only directors or cameramen, but also photographers,
plastic artists, musicians and poets. The open nature of the Workshop
allowed all of them to find their place in its programme, especially
because many of their artistic endeavours were clearly closely related to
happenings or performances.
Ryszard Wasko became a Workshop member in 1971. The following year he made
his first films within the programme of the FFW. He quickly became one of
the most prominent artists of the group. He took part in numerous
presentations of world avantgarde cinema of the decade, such as, for
example, "International Experimental Film Festival" in Knokke-Heist (1974),
"Film als Film" in Kolnischer Kunstverein (1977) or "Film as Film" in
Hayward Gallery in London (1979).
Wasko's films, like his photographs, combine an analytical attitude
(towards the medium) with the intertextual tendency to trangress the genre
borders. The Padlock (1972) develops a non-cinematic narration by means of
referring to photography (motionless, static frames impose this feature on
cinematic images). Registration (1972) is based on space manipulation,
constructing by means of counterpoint use a series of pictures engaging the
imagination of the viewer and deceiving him finally by the vision of an
impossible space. This film (like the photographic work The Accident,
discussed earlier) tries to place the viewer within the constructed space.
This time it operates in accord with the nature of the medium, even though
the construction of the discourse has much in common with photography. The
Wall (1972) transforms a direct film registration through its
non-chronological editing (after cutting it into very short pieces) and
through sound counterpoints. In The Sidewalk (1972) Wasko again uses the
intertextual reference to photography because movement appears there as a
result of connecting and dividing static images created by means of ones
animation. System I-VI (1973) is an analysis relations between pictures and
sound, which, by the way, plays the role of media intertext in many films
by Wasko and other artists centred around the Film Form Workshop. The film
30 Sound Situations (1975) which, in turn, studies those relations in
reference to perception rather than to ontology of the film. In all those
works by Wasko, as well as in those I have not mentioned, one can notice
clearly analytical interests in the spatial dimensions of the cinema. I
Walk Between (1975) ultimately leads the cinema in the sphere of
performance art (to a lesser degree it was also attempted in his other
films, like in the aforementioned 30 Sound Situations). It is only one of
the many roads which Wasko's cinema takes to leave its original realm. The
analytical attitude which has a lot to do with conceptualism and structural
cinema concentrates its attention primarily (if not exclusively) on media
determinants and it neglects not only expression, but also form conceived
objectively. It concerns both film and photography in the same degree. In
Wasko's works created in these two media the objects gradually disappear
from the pictures and images. The function of representation is replaced in
them by an abstract analytical discourse. A lot of works and photographic
and cinematic projects have been devoted totally to discussions of problems
that are of interest to him, such as, for example, the question of relation
between the plane (of a photograph or the screen) and space.
The cinema of Ryszard Wasko, like his photographs, is stretched between the
internal analysis of the medium, the study of its mathematical logic, and
the external analysis of its relations and connections. Photography found
its intertext above all in the film medium, while external intertextual
functions in the case of film are filled by different media that are also
present (in various ways and to various degrees) in cinematic structure:
photography, sound art and performance are examples of these artistic
disciplines. Their active presence within and without the medium of film
problematizes the opposition between "the inside" and "the outside", making
transgression and transmedializm the essential features of works by Ryszard
Wasko.
His video works occupy a similar place within the realm of art. In his
installation Corner (1976) he problematized the phenomenon of direct
transmission, analyzing simultaneously the relation between reality and its
representation, between real space and presented space. Another important
aspect of this work is the spatial character of the installation itself
(the monitor) - it is a point where real space meets the representation of
space, so the installation not only deconstructs the medium of video, but
it also comes into an intertextual relation with sculpture and environment
art. The problem of presented space in video art, this time in an
intertextual relation not only to spatial arts, but also to performance
art, returns in Wasko's video-performance-installation called The Space
Beyond (1976). His video-performance (created in the same year) entitled
The Fatigue of My Leg draws our attention to the position of the artist as
the subject of unintentional intrusions in the structure of the work -
which also presents the work itself (in accord with McLuhan's ideas) as the
extension of human psychophysiological activity. The problem of the
intrusion of the medium in the structure of the work Wasko examines in
another work called Enlargement (1976).
Some of his video works of the seventies, like, for example, Measurement
(1976), were extensions of his earlier film experiments. Most of them
combined the continually present in them transmedia perspective with the
analysis of the features of the new creative instrument -video. However,
all of them were open, both structurally and notionally - they were
consecutive stages of a mental process within the limits of which various
aspects of the medium were analyzed.
It would seem that photography, film and video were basic creative
instruments for Ryszard Wasko. However quite early in his career, at least
in 1977, one might clearly notice signs of transformations in Wasko's works
(the artist himself believes his turning-point work to be Model 50 x 50,
created in 1976). In the second part of this essay, when writing about his
1977 work Hypothetical Photograph, I said that the deconstruction of the
medium becomes its gradual rejection. Other works of the same kind
followed: a second version of Hypothetical Photograph (1978), a series of
works under a common title Hypothetical Film (1979.). The artist rejects
the media he bad been employing until now and reaches for new means of
expression, he moves away from technology and from the danger of being
enclosed in one particular style. But he does not do away with his earlier
attitude which basically may be described as an inclination towards
elementary qualities. Among other features of his work that survived th
crucial time of change (proving their importance) one should mention space,
time, movement, dynamics, Iight, fragmentation, incompleteness,
inconclusiveness, transformation, transgression and transmedialism. The
works created in this paradigm escape general perception - the whole is
elusive, but, on the other hand, it is necessary to understand the details
we perceive. What is necessary is then the intrusion of structural
imagination (this aspect of his works is fundamental for all artistic
projects related to conceptual strategies). The position of the audience
becomes dynamic and the gradual nature of perception corresponds to (at
least for the time of perception) the structure of the work which takes on
an analogous shape.
Not only his contemporary works, but also works from the eighties contain
the seeds of this project. In time transmedialism begins to dominate in
Wasko's work over the analytical perspective. Black Film (1983), Checkpoint
Charlie (1987) or Quinta essentia (1988) develop in a series of intermedia
relations. Many of his works of this period possess their basic general
feature and they are still in contact with film, which was rejected as the
medium of expression, but which returned as an intertext. Their static
structure consisting of many elements gives the impression of a process in
motion (and thus also in time). A particularly interesting example here may
be a work created in 1986 Holoistic Event, also known as Hommage for the
Street. A construction of many elements -black polyhedrons - was laid out
on the floor of the gallery. Their shape and appearance evokes associations
with a piece of film tape. The movement of the film is replaced here by the
movement of the receiver who - moving within the space of the gallery -
builds a reversed but still dynamic relation with the imaginary "film". At
the same time the movement of the viewer represents a walk on the street,
hence the other part of the title. This dynamism is completed by the
perceptive changeability of the work dependent on the changing light
(natural light coming through the windows of the gallery). This work, while
keeping its intertextual relations with film, seems to be its ultimate
rejection. It is a move towards plastic visualization, towards matter,
texture, paint; physical activity and real space. Towards new creative
possibilities.
At the end of this short outline of Ryszard Wasko's work I should mention
one more very important aspect of his creative endeavours. For many years
he has been an initiator and organizer of numerous artistic ventures.
Special significance must be attributed particularly to a series of
exhibitions under a common title "Construction in Process". It was
organized for the first time in Lodz in 1981 and it possesses a certain
interesting feature: artists who are invited to participate in it invite in
turn another group of participants, which gives the exhibition a dynamic,
open and common character, perfectly harmonizing with the idea expressed in
the name of the project. Its concept goes back to the time of "Film Form
Workshop" when many artistic projects were based on creating possibilities
and contexts for the expression of other artists. The transgression we
observe in this case questions the borders between "pure" artistic creation
and creation conceived as organization. A similar idea was the guiding
principle in establishing the Artists' Museum. This institution also should
be treated as an artistic project because activity in the realm of art, if
it is undertaken in the name of art, cannot tolerate any barriers,
conventions or limits.