Field Work: Kinolaboratorium as Experiment in Living

• In Event: Locating Eastern European Experimental Cinema in the Socialist-Era Cultural Landscape

Abstract

This paper is a case study of Kinolaboratorium – the 1973 edition of the annually repeating Biennial of Spatial Forms sponsored and hosted by Zamech Mechanical Works in Elbląg, Poland. Organizers framed the event as an “international confrontation of new cinema” and targeted “the problem of filmic language” and renewal of the film form as points of focus. It was curated by the Workshop of the Film Form – a group of Łódź-based filmmakers who claimed the Soviet Avant Garde as heritage yet simultaneously identified with the emerging international movement of structural film. The event not only showcased experimental film but was, in itself, an experiment in living: lodging was provided in the form of communal tents on the Zamech grounds, and participants were fed “under field conditions.” Kinolaboratorium's stated ideological commitment to egalitarianism (among participating artists and between artists and local Zamech workers) was taken seriously. The event was an exercise in non-hierarchical self-organization: there were no prizes, juries, or ranking systems. Participants included Béla Balázs Studio (Budapest), Dovzhenko Film Studios (Kiev), GREK experimental studio (France) and individual artists, with the effect that individuals, artist groups, and state institutions came into confluence, mingling among tents and sharing meals under the stars. Poland was mobilized as mediator between the Soviet Union and the West and middle ground between strong state oversight over the arts and the Western cult of individualism. This paper explores Kinolaboratorium as a collective experiment operating on multiple registers: as verification of ideology, anarchic social experiment, and aesthetic laboratory.

Author

• Eliza Rose, UNC at Chapel Hill