Zbigniew Rybczyński and Early Video Art

film analysis

1 Jul

Written By

When it comes to the visual arts, there is often a division between artistic vision and technical craft. This is true in both the worlds of modern art and commercial media. On one side, there are the artists - the film/TV directors or advertising creative teams - who come up with the ideas. On the other, there are the practitioners who put these ideas into practice. In the old studio systems, apprentices could work their way up to be directors, but those systems are gone. It is much more fluid today, but there still seems to be a distinction between those who decide on an artistic concept and those who realise it.

Occasionally, an artist comes along who manages to bridge the gap between artistic vision and technical craft. One such person is the Polish video artist Zbigniew Rybczyński. Active since the early 70s, Rybczyński’s work came to prominence in the 80s. To some degree, this was a case of an artist’s interests and technology crossing paths. Working with the latest video hardware, Rybczyński created deceptively simple work that still holds up today. Whilst aspects of it can look dated, the ideas still feel fresh and interesting. This is what makes them stand out as artworks as opposed to technical craft explorations.

I first became aware of Rybczyński through Channel 4’s late-night arts programming in the UK during the mid-eighties with a series called Ghosts in the Machine. This was well received at the time (the Financial Times gave it a rave review) and it was quickly commissioned for a second series. This goodwill didn’t last long, however, as Channel 4’s new chairman, Michael Grade - who had recently axed Doctor Who whilst at the BBC - decided to reschedule the programme from 10:30pm on a Friday evening to 12:30am on a Tuesday morning. It didn’t survive.

Recently, a friend on Twitter reminded me of this series when he posted a link to a film made as part of a later Channel 4 series called Midnight Underground in the mid-90s. Like Ghosts in the Machine this series showcased film and video art that was hard to find elsewhere. With my interest in all things film and video, both these series were inspiring and demonstrated exciting and interesting ways to use video as an artform.

The piece that I first saw on Ghosts in the Machine was Rybczyńsi’s Steps (1987).

By painstakingly rotoscoping elements of the famous Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) and combining it with chroma key (green/blue screen) compositing, Rybczyński created a humorous yet troubling film that allowed modern-day brash American tourists to go sightseeing within the frames of the film itself. Whilst the harsh look of the 80s video footage is unmistakable, its combination with the older film footage is interesting from a present-day perspective. A modern viewer is effectively a time tourist watching time tourists from the 80s in a 1925 Soviet film about an actual historical occurrence. If someone is mad enough, they could perhaps create a VR film that explores Rybczyński’s Steps to create another meta-historical level...

Eisenstein himself saw his films as a dynamic piece of art that could be reinterpreted to keep its revolutionary message fresh. He saw how different musical interpretations could aid this and the film has been re-scored throughout history - in 2004 The Pet Shop Boys created a new score for the film which they unveiled at a free live performance in London’s Trafalgar Square.

The Experimental 80s Underground

During the 80s, I also had an interest in the more obscure end of electronic music (Coil, Front 242, Foetus, Yello) and a standout track that got into the charts was Closer to the Edit by The Art of Noise, who asked Rybczyński to create a video for them.

As it turns out, the band didn’t like the way they looked that much, thinking they came across like middle-of-the-road rock-porridge band Huey Lewis and the News. This led to two further videos for the song made without Rybczyński, and the band finally settled on a more obscure, Residents-like anonymity.

Another interesting development in the late eighties and early nineties was the availability of increasingly obscure material on video cassette. As the price of production came down, there was an explosion of underground material becoming available. This ranged from recorded performances of acts such as the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow to cyberpunk music pieces that combined video with (then) cutting-edge computer graphics. Back before I got involved in video production, I worked in an occult/new age shop in Covent Garden selling audiovisual material (along with brain machines and hypnosis tapes). One of the new ranges of products becoming available were ambient video cassettes that fit well with the burgeoning dance culture of the time. Whales and dolphins were popular, as were simple videos of repeating fractal patterns. A prime example of the cutting edge was the Future Sound of London’s Lifeforms video, which was groundbreaking (and on constant rotation in the shop).

Around this time, there was a company, Videola, that was putting out work by video artists on tape. Recognising Rybczyński’s name on one of the tapes, I purchased it. I didn’t regret it. The film was the mesmerising The Fourth Dimension (1988).

The video uses the slit-scan technique previously utilised in both Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Kubrick’s 2001. Slit-scan creates its effect in video by offsetting thin strips (or in this case pixel lines) of a film or video in time to create the unusual wrapping effect when used in conjunction with well-planned live action. The effect is mesmerising and beautifully reminiscent of surrealist paintings. By this time, Rybczyński had already long established a name for himself. His film, Tango, won the Oscar for Best Animated Film in 1981. Whether the film is animation or live action is only testament to Rybczyński’s form-bending skills (warning: nudity). Rumour has it that Rybczyński’s speech was cut short after he began with the words 'Thank you American Pigs' and he was later arrested for smoking a cigarette by police who didn’t know he was an award winner, making him the only Oscar winner to be arrested on Oscar night.

The final film I want to post from Rybczyński is the Bolero 'Staircase to Lenin' excerpt from The Orchestra (1990), a film shot in early High Def with a simple motion control camera head. Rybczyński defines the film as 'composed of six phantasmagoric “musical frames.”’ It is another fantastic, thought-provoking piece that showcases the talents of its filmmaker.

If you like these videos, you should seriously check out more of Rybczyński’s work as it is all high quality. He’s still active today and endlessly inventive. Hopefully, it will inspire you to think differently about the interplay between technical craft and artistic message. I know it has for me. There’s a lot of discussion around AI video and AI art - some of it quite heated. I think if we step back and look at the approach of video artists to new technologies we can see how we might use this new technology not to rip off the old but to create something new. Here is a small film I made using a combination of Midjourney and Runway a year ago. This tech is very early in its infancy and, admittedly, it will be used to create a glut of uninspiring work - but it may also be used to create new ideas. And the universe loves a new idea. The important thing is the intention behind the artwork. The meaning, not just the form.