Reality unbound: The politics of fragmentation in the experimental productions of kinema ikon

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the experimental films produced by a semi-professional workshop, kinema ikon, in Arad, Romania between 1970 and 1989. Employing a socially contextualized reading of the film workshop as an informal institution, the author argues that the workshop's members were interested in intermedia art as a means of producing unconventional representations and autonomous aesthetic objects. At the same time, the workshop focused on the incorporation and expansion of the vocabulary of avant-garde film through a strategic fragmentation of vision. Finally, the article advances a reading of kinema ikon's films as socially subversive practices, given that the notion of ideology critique is related not to their actual representational content, but rather to their particular modes of production and forms of visuality.

KEYWORDS:

• Experimental art
• informal public sphere
• avant-garde
• Romanian cinema
• structural film
• montage

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by The Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding – UEFISCDI [grant PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-2194].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Suchianu (1976, 4) mentions Emil Mateiaş's Stropi de Soare/Sun Drops, a metaphor for welding, and Lukavetski's Firul/The Thread depicting the production of consumer goods, both produced by Didactica cine-club in Reşița.

2. According to Geo Saizescu, the then president of cine-club commission of ACIN – Romanian Association of Filmmakers, the goal of these films are to enhance the patriotic, aesthetic, ethical and cultural education of the cine-lovers (Sârbu 1976, 4).

3. In no. 6/1976 of Cinema, famous screenwriter Mihnea Gheorghiu and director Sergiu Nicolaescu overtly declared their complete adhesion to realist-socialist doctrine – including the formation of the new man. Realist feature-films (Mircea Drăgan's 1972 Explozia/The Explosion), fictions portraying heroic workers (such as Francis Munteanu's 1985 Vară Sentimentală/Sentimental Summer or Alexandru Tatos's 1976 Mere Roşii/Red Apples) and historical megaproductions (such as Sergiu Nicolaescu's 1970 Mihai Viteazu) formed the core of mainstream cinema. They left some room for entertaining Hollowood-style films, including comedies such as Nea Mărin Miliardar/Mr. Marin Billionare (1978), adaptations of American Westerns (such as the 1983 Drumul Oaselor/Road of the Bones) and historical action films (such as the 1981 Iancu Jianu, haiducul). Nevertheless, their content was either nationalist, or overtly critical towards capitalism and the bourgeoisie.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cristian Nae

Cristian Nae, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Art History and Theory, George Enescu University of Arts, Iasi. His research interests include aesthetics, critical theory, visual studies and contemporary art history, with a focus on art from Romania and Eastern Europe. His research has been supported by several research grants, including ones from the Erste Stiftung, The Getty Foundation, the New Europe College Institute of Advanced Studies, Bucharest, and the Romanian National Council of Scientific Research (UEFISCDI).