Subversion should not be trusted

Exibition Subversion should not be trusted is one of the starting points for the Alternative
film/video festival in 2017. The concept of the exibition is made by Miriam de Rosa and Greg
de Cuir Jr. It focuses on eight experimental short films grouped in four pairs. The two films in
a pair are screened one next to the other, so both of them could be seen as a whole, or watched
separetely so the viewer can concentrate on the parallelisms between the works. And, of
course, every film is largely considered a subversive one, so there's no doubt that the
concentration of subversion in the room is enormous. Can you really let yoursefl go and enjoy
the exibition or you need to be somehow distanced and not completely trust the material you
are presented?
The first match contains Monuments should not be trusted and Consumer art. Monuments
should not be trusted is a five minute long experimental film made in 1958 by Dušan
Makavejev, a prominent director of Yugoslav black wave cinema. His art is known for
provocacy of those-days regime and artistic standards, so no wonder why the title of the
exibition has a dedication to this piece of art. The plot of the film is centered around a girl
who worships a statue of a naked man by touching it and circlering around it. While this is
happening, romantic piano music is playing in the background and underlines the idea that we
are watching some kind of Makavejev's version of Pygmalion in a shape of a woman.
On the other hand, Natalia LL, Polish visual and conceptual artist, brings us Consumer art
from the 1970's featuring several female models delighting in products like bananas,
frankfurters and ice-cream. The reference is transparent – the action of models evokes erotic
and sexual connotations, in particular fellatio. This of course links eroticism with
consumption, wich is an everyday phenomenon in modern times. Though it's open to
interpretation whether this is a critique of cunsumerism or its praise (the promotion of
consumerism in 1970's communist Poland would be quite subversive), it's clear the women
takes an active role. She enjoys her actions and is no longer an object of the male gaze, while
masculinity is diminished to phallic shapes.
And this is where Natalia LL and Makavejev are resembling each other; the woman who takes
an active role in society, no matter if she takes a role from a male mythical character or she
takes a dominant possition in consumer praxis and its promotion. And, yes, there's a notable
link between consuming classical sculpture art, as the actress in Monuments... does with her
body language, and the usage of modern-day products in the second film. This link suggests
that art is no longer present only in museums because it went through industrialization and
comercialization. Thus, art is present in every package of our daily products.
Unlike the previous, the next pair has nothing to do with consumerism nor with consumption.
In fact, the plots of the next two films don't exist and we can oly analyze them by observing
the films's possitions in the history of cinematography. Scusa Signorina is a 1963 antifilm by
Mihovil Pansini. The Yugoslav director intended to make a film with no characteristics of a
conventional one. That means no story, no characters, no meaningful or planed framing, etc.
Sometimes you have no idea what are you watching, but now and then you can guess: footage
of a street in the city and its passer-bys, all filmed randomly.
This is one of the examples of a hermetically made art. The autor has no intention to satisfy
his audience nor to give them any information. It may seem meaningless, but it represents art
of pure freedom with no limitations and no conventions. And the purpose of pieces like this
one is to gain unrestricted liberty to the artist. This was especially needed in the time of the
film's occurance when the imperative of the communist regime was to make films which
presented the life and work of an average proletarian. Nothing else was needed in the
filmmaking. There was neither an alternative in the western world where mass Hollywood
industry accepted nothing but the commercial motion pictires with the three-act structure
dramaturgy.
The other half of the second pair, Scanner Pack – Scusa Signorina by Karla Tobar plays with
Scusa Signorina and puts it into one half of the screen, while the other half is a film shoot
nowdays following the images in Scusa and making them similar. Only, this new footage is a
contrast to the former one in its colourful image. The rest is similar, but we see the city street
and people through the eyes of a much more steady camera. The intervention of putting
together the two footages are not so clear, but we can assume that the autor is trying to tell us
that we need even today antifilm and a batle for the artist's freedom, because a little has
changed concerning cinematographic conventions. Only the streets are new and
contemporary, everything else is known and old.