rainer ganahl dadalenin

Dziga Vertov's Man with a Camera tries to give an "unedited" view on Soviet life - in 1929; He tried to create a cinematic experiment to "create a truly internationall absolute language, a cinema based on the total separation from the language of theater and literature, ... without sets, actors, etc. "

I have selected 42 film stills and had them rendered in ink with the help of my assistant. Vertov's experiment to "create an international abosolute language". the ink drawings highlight the wonderful believe in the revolution of a new artistic medium (hence: my anachronisitc format) i.e. film who was of cousre, immediately instrumentalized in propaganda and worse.

Dada is interpreted by me not only as a critic of utopian dreams but also as a non-explicit critic of technology. the film's embrace of mechanical representation and its drive to overcome theater, literature and other forms of art - transcending actors, film sets and screenplays - interests me since it is embedded in the teleological hopes for a Lenininst soveit society that is equal, just and hence 'representational". The technics of superimposing and flicker montage as well as the cameramen's sensibility to caputre the poetry of his nearly encyclopedic approach to filming the soviet industry, soviet work and it's daily live (including war, accidents and death) allow to create moments that are dadaist in appearance and spirit. Needless to say, that Lenin (as well as his Fife Year plan) also has his appearance.

needless to say, the film is really also about production and specifically the production of this film. filming is presented as part of the national production of a soviet empire, the (dada)lenin revolution. the cutting of the film --- editing is given a major importance.. as well as srcreening.. : the public is also alwasy included. the major protagoist is the camera man. or lets say, the man with the camera, walking, standing, driving, flying, doing magic with his camera.. filmed by another camera which is not in the screen.. (there is no mirror situation with 2 camera in the screen but sometimes the objective of one camrea mirrors the filming second camera ---

yet another observation : the omnipresence of the film camera is an anticipation of the control totalitarian society turned into.. - and neo-liberal societies are now becoming : even without cameras --- we are seeing now without cameras... (electronically - by what people key into computers == ps: we see typwriters in Vertov).last but not least, even the viewer in Vertov's film, the spectator in the movie is subject to filming and gets scrutinized non stop... just like today's advertizing agencies are having their ratings measured.

these drawings give us back the breath that is taken while seeing these news real kind of strips... and one can see that it is a very carefully, aestheticized and thoughfully edited film that not only had a script but also an ideological basis that carries these images into eternity trying to render film making into the most sublime of all productions topping even the people in machine rooms and miners underground.

Vertov was himself a victim of the Soviet System he helped to create inasfar as he couldn't really tell the "truth", was in fact pushed out from his job and couldn't do anymore his real shows.... Even the Soviet Union prefered "hollywood style" genres to his topological filming. Thus he is himself DADALENIN and can be happy to have survived it. (which might not have been the case, had he had more success -- as in the case of Stalin's Social Engineering who where all liquidated and executed.

paper size: 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm ), inch on paper

below a suggested grouping that could change.. : new editing..

camera eye