ROBOTIC and SYNTHETIC PERFORMANCE: Steps Toward a Culture of Liberation a Manifesto of the OmniCircus
XXV. SOCIAL SURREALIST METHODS:
Beyond Eisenstein's Montage
The Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein analyzed the creation of filmic compositions. He discovered scientific principles of organizing material that reflect the way the human brain works in its creative activity. His techniques start out with the idea that any time a scene is shot, the audience can see it as an organic "cell" which is taken as one entity. Then the next shot juxtaposed to it or sequenced after it, is another "cell." The audience inherently sees the relationships between the shots and comes up with a third entity that is not contained in either of the separate shots. In other words, the composition is the product, not the sum of the constituent elements. There is a multiplication of meaning between the two, not just an addition of separate meanings. Eisenstein used examples from the Chinese pictographic language. The Chinese ideogram for "keyhole" is a picture of a keyhole. The ideogram for "eye" is a picture of an eye. When you superimpose the two pictures, they become the word for "spying". There's nothing inherent about the concept "spying" in either of those two. For Eisenstein the essential force of montage, or editing, is the clash of opposing structural or thematic elements to create a new idea that is greater than the sum of its parts.
There exist six fundamental techniques of montage construction. The first three were explored by Eisenstein and codified in his theoretical writings. The last three techniques, however, are sequential stages in the building up of associative montage in Constructive abstraction or Social-surrealist drama. Eisenstein's montage techniques were limited by his (Stalin-enforced) naturalistic bias. We can now go beyond Eisenstein's montage both in our understanding of the emerging capabilities of the human mind and in our use of them.
1. Theme/counter theme - the essential cell of all montage, the clash of opposing structural or thematic elements to create a new idea which is greater than the sum of its component parts (the product, not the sum, of the constituent elements).
2. Juxtaposition - the most basic method of montage, a sequencing of opposing elements in time or space to create purely intellectual, subjective unity.
3. Superposition - simultaneous layering of elements to create visual or aural, not just intellectual, unity.
4. Interpolation - this is the key to surrealistic montage. It is the critical point of transformation from the reflective to the active image. Interpolation is another word for the process of merging, a critical component of design language creation. Design is the active construction of social reality, materially speaking. We pass here from explanation (documentary, science) to creation (design, art). Interpolation is the process of reforming each thematic element in the montage structure. The superpositions made from disparate themes are taken as single new themes and combined. This involves translating the forms which represent the ideas you are expressing into a montage containing the "buried corpse" of realist imagery; within the abstraction an associative process occurs, and thus the viewer finds meaning in the work. These associations are constellations of socially defined connotations and therefore constitute a language. The means and modes of production of society reflect themselves in art, but art can, in turn, create new modes of design. The parent becomes the child, the child the parent. This is the process by which a building, a chair, or an abstract form can become sculpture, or express ideas and feelings. This is the role of montage in design and art.
5. Combination (or synthesis) - the artist takes the finished synthetic image and makes it a new theme, the basis of a new montage construction. A new level of image or idea then exists. Interpolations of theme and counter-theme translate the images into the design language, then blending these images with other interpolated themes, creating a new starting point. This new synthetic image can then be opposed by bringing forth the...
6. Counter synthesis - this is the surrealist montage. The original interpolated or abstracted theme-counter theme becomes a new starting point to be opposed by its own abstract counter theme or counter synthesis. The dialectic starts anew on a higher level, a level which transforms art into the laboratory for social design. Montage exists simultaneously on all structural levels, small and large, micro and macro montage.
Meaning in sound or image is based on social connotations that reference functional elements of our surroundings as well as internal visions; a reference to a jet or El-train is as powerful and important as a reference to nature or individuals.
For example, Henry Moore's ATOM PIECE sculpture is a masterpiece of Social Surrealist interpolation. It originates with the following cells - human skull, atomic mushroom cloud, warrior's helmet, phallus, cathedral. These images are merged to create a single, new form, one that contains tragic evocations of our potential for creation and destruction. The large version of this work sits on the site of the first controlled chain reaction on the University of Chicago campus, where it broods, silent witness to the mystery of our age. The site is not a stop on any tourist bus. Similarly, his INTERNAL-EXTERNAL FORMS is a montage of sarcophagus/embryo, eros/thanatos, birth/death. It is a profound and moving symbol of the death of one epoch, the age of war and exploitation, and the birth of another, an age of empowerment and liberation. INTERNAL-EXTERNAL FORMS is the greatest and most archetypal visual icon of our revolutionary and transitional age that exists in the realm of modern public sculpture.
The assemblage sculpting team of Nancy and Ed Kienholz, surely one of the great "social surrealists" collaborations of the 20th century, collected junk, recycled objects and industrial effluvia and made powerful and moving works such as The BIRTHDAY, BACK SEAT DODGE and The STATE HOSPITAL which corporealized the deformations and contradictions of our complex society. Many of their works were multimedia installations that used mechanical, electronic and audio technologies to create mood and effects.
This leads to an examination of montage on the largest scale - architage, or architectural montage. This mode of thought and set of techniques can be used to solve not only artistic problems, but also political problems of the design process itself. A city, for instance, can be collectively designed by its inhabitants when opposing tendencies can be combined in the most profound way. This ideal of Constructivist, Surrealist and progressive art - the democratic creation of social design using the techniques of montage - we call "architage". The implementation of this vision will be a hard road paved with sweat and struggle, for those who oppose it are powerful.
