Martin Rumsby

NEW WORLD GONE WRONG

I

I saw an old edition of Landfall recently on the Paul Holmes television programme. That orange covered Landfall looked like a Penguin paperback of the 1940s. Today Landfall looks like Granta. What does that mean? Does it mean that to be published in the old Landfall was the Kiwi equivalent of being published by Penguin? Does Landfall look like Granta or does Granta look like Landfall? I would like to know.

A related question may be, what was the modern nation state of New Zealand founded on? Was New Zealand founded on an idea or an ideal, like equality, liberty or justice. Or did those ideas come along later, like a lean-to slapped up on the side of a weekend cottage as an afterthought? After we arrived, erected the flag, grabbed some land, got into mining, agriculture, import and export then gave thanks for the good Lord's bounty. After thanks came the need to justify, so some primeval form of Kiwi intelligence cobbled an amalgam of various platitudes and apologies into a national myth, not half as good as Maui's story.

I believe that we need an idea here. Our idea could be that since the New World has gone and messed itself up, mainly by looking back to the Old World, we could make ourselves anew as a sort of Noah's Ark of New World ideals and practices. That we came here, leaving the Old World behind and created a radically new culture, rooted in this place. I think that may have been part of the initial impulse of the American avant-garde cinema. Of filmmakers realizing that the New World ideal had been betrayed and so creating work as a genuine attempt to make things right. I believe that the same could be said about the work of the artists Tony Fomison and Theo Schoon in New Zealand culture. What form would a New World ideal take? Whatever you or I want it to.

A great narrative for Aotearoa New Zealand would have been that Abel Tasman arrived as the first European in 1642 but never landed. South Island Maori attacked, killed and ate three of Tasman's crew and Tasman sailed away. No Europeans ever returned to Aotearoa New Zealand. But the actuality is more like the Fall at the Garden of Eden. Europeans followed Tasman and Cook, carrying with them the germs and seeds of European culture, displacing then co-opting the native culture in a narrative of power reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe. Of which the French writer Gilles Deleuse said, One can hardly imagine a more boring novel ... Robinson's vision of the world resides exclusively in property ... Robinson's companion is not Eve, but Friday, docile towards work, happy to be a slave, and too easily disgusted by cannibalism. Any healthy reader would dream of seeing him eat Robinson ... Robinson's vision of the world resides exclusively in property ... The mythical recreation of the world from the deserted island gives way to the reconstitution of everyday bourgeois life from a reserve of capital. Everything is taken from the ship. Nothing is invented. Whereas the island could be seen as an egg from which people and culture were reborn in it's image. (Deleuze 2004 p12).

Today in Aotearoa New Zealand Maori are imprisoned in suburban ghettos and jails. Samoans, Tongans, Rarotongans and other Polynesians work for low wages in the factories of South and East Auckland whilst our European population remains transfixed by the image it sees of itself in the media mirror. And that mirror does not reflect our appalling profanity as we grow uglier and more absurd with each passing day.

Could there be a new order reflecting the open naturalness of Polynesia? Something that depicts a consciousness beyond power, beyond institutions from somewhere way out beyond the present mind of our society.

II

What did Kenneth Patchen say in The Journal of Albion Moonlight?

I have seen men (and women) engaged in activities that would shame a grub under a rock.

Let me tell you two stories about people.

I knew of a filmmaker in Canada who witnessed his mother's suicide when he was ten years old. He went on to commit suicide himself somewhat later in life. In between the two suicides which defined his life he conquered his depression sufficiently to make some really great and meaningful films. That was where his art came from. His work inspired George Lucas to make THX 1138 and Stanley Kubrick asked him to make the trailer for Doctor Strangelove. (He declined). Even though his films are about you and I and our situation within society they are largely unknown. Indeed I sat on a print of one of films for eight years in New Zealand and no one would look at it. I do not know why but people are looking elsewhere. Better to make a film about one's genitals than one's mind.

There is an Algerian man in jail in Auckland. It is alleged that he may be a terrorist. This man was kept in solitary confinement for so long that he lost his marbles and is no longer capable of defending himself in court. Guilty as charged, I guess. If he ever gets out his only possibility for a future will be as an artist. How can people treat others so badly? Who is responsible for such disservice to humanity? Why are we letting this happen?

In a conversation with Gilles Deleuze the French philsopoher Michel Foucault stated that, To put someone in prison ... is .. the most delerious form of power available ... for once power does not try to hide itself ... but reveals itself as a tyranny down to the most insignificant detail (appearing) as the serene domination of Good over Evil, of order over disorder. (Deleuze 2004 p 209).

III

In a sane society politicians and criminals would be driven out of their minds to be rehabilitated as artists.

Actually, politicians and criminals, whilst undesirable, are not the lowest form of human life. Media arts academics and professionals are lower. (Artists are the lowest). This is because academics and professionals occupy privileged positions of relative independence and freedom. They could speak of something better than the status quo but instead remain silent. They are worse than actors even. At least you know that an actor is lying (You just can not tell when he is speaking the truth). Media arts academics and professionals mask their indifference in jargon, mystifying their higher place in the food chain than yours and mine. They do not believe in equality. The artist Theo Schoon likened them to a colony of barking seals biting each other in the back.

Where is the high ground from which we may survey the field? Why are so many in the media arts dismissive of forms of avant-garde cinema?

IV

The notion of public space has been completely transformed over the last 50 years. Public spaces used to be places where people gathered to interact with each other, contemplating nature and enjoying conversation. Like town squares and village greens. Today our primary public spaces are motorways and the Internet. Our conversations little more than a rehashing of lines from a phrasebook and postures from a Hollywood movie.

We are in public, alone in our car, zipping from a to b, maybe talking on a cellphone, avoiding collisions with others. We are in public when alone in a darkened room, punching a keyboard, looking into a flickering blue electronic eye which leads us down familiar and often unchallenging pathways. There are no aromas, there is nothing to touch, we have no feelings. Perfect for the era of sex without secretions. It is not quite the same as risking to walk down a darkened alleyway in the pursuit of knowledge derived from human contact.

Something similar could be said of art. Art is not to be found in those French theories so beloved by academics from Saskatchewan to Southland. McTheory, is just another franchise. Remember that non-alcoholic beverage you would drink when you didn't want to drink? Claytons. McTheory for thinker who doesn't want to think. McArt for the artist who does not want to confront the self.

Many media academics remain willfully ignorant of forms of avant-garde cinema, preferring instead to apply the most obtuse forms of European theory, quite inappropriately, to mass market forms of industrial cinema. Intellectuals sucking off Hollywood and TV rather than engaging the world of ideas, ideals and thought applied to cinema. They are everywhere, almost identical. I have seen exactly the same art work made by an art school graduate in Windsor, Ontario as by an graduate in Chicago, Illinois. Almost the same paintings in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Auckland, New Zealand.

People, unknown to each other and unknown to themselves, are producing almost exactly the same type of work, be it internationalist or regionalist, in places thousands of miles apart, because they are reading the same books. Western art education is standardized. Work is coming from books, not life. Therefore it can only aspire to be academic, mannered and meaningless.

The worst thing about European theory and Hollywood movies is when academics are colonized by them. It shows that such academics are not thinking. There is a tradition within our own cinematic and cultural history opposed to hegemony, it is not quite so for many of our academics. Those who may apply a Lacanian reading of Spielberg, or Deleuze on the subjectivity of Grieson and so on. Blockbuster movies create intellectual buzz, beyond that already generated by press releases, cross marketing, publishing deals etc. The intellectual criteria for so many academics seem to be films that make money. This is the equivalent of ACT Party policies, because they represent the free market and the possibility of profit, being taught as contemporary philosophy. Academics who try to intellectualize entertainment. Lower forms of higher education. They should know better.

Is it too much to ask about forms of American cinema that resist Hollywood? Artworks as text - reading the film itself instead of bending it to some theoretical model. Direct film as its own theory, visual theory, spoken with images, sounds AND text. Relationships between the visual arts, contemporary theory and the media arts. The possibility of a philosophical cinema. A non-intellectual cinema! Even landscape and regionalism in film. Of course there is less thought involved in applying Lacan to a mass market feature film than developing a theory on, say, a local cinematic equivalence to the paintings of Colin McCahon or somesuch.

We like to experiment with the social and economic aspects of our society, but are loath to toy with the arts; to reclaim art as something useful to our daily life. Better to bury our heads in the sand, at the cineplex or at home, in the DVD player, with the latest releases from the video store and deny. Deny our own personal voice, deny our daily moments. They are not slick enough, not expensive enough. Not American. We prefer a recipe for self loathing playing in our heads as fantasyland, as something we cannot be. But we are. That is what I saw. That penny dropped.

V

I once attended a lecture by Donald Kuspit in which he said that art today has taken on a role to that of tulips in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century. Our academies are churning out artists on a McTheory production line. So what to do with the excess? Create artist-run centres, art banks, cut-price outlets for the culture industry. Art is remaindered.

Where did Art go after he left Simon? There is no recipe or cookbook, no mantra, no guru. There is only life. It is all we have and all we will ever have. It is only in life that we find art. Art is to be found at the end of a darkened alley or after one has stepped over the precipice without parachute or hang glider, you fall, either to your death or till you learn to fly. It is the loneliest and most dangerous of places. It is not a place to seek friendship.

That is not what Simon says. Simon says put your hand on your head and file like a chorus of tongue-tied wetbacks into the cineplex. Simon says, to help you forget who you are: develop the attention span of an ant. And so I say forget what Simon says. Who cares what Simon says? Simon is short for simpleton and Simon says is a kid's game.

There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search the reason that bids you to write, find out whether you are spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied to you to write. This above all - ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write?

Rainer Maria Rilke

For those not prepared to make a leap of faith there are art works one can look at before you jump. As a companion to reading Deleuze on subjectivity in cinema get the Criterion DVD of 26 films by Stan Brakhage. Before you know it, hey presto, you are flying. And then, I dare you, interrogate Deleuze with Brakhage. Know yourself.

Stan Brakhage started making subjective films in the 1950s. Brakhage made formal films, expressionistic films, abstract films, all sorts of films. He may even be the greatest of all abstract-expressionist artists because he applied the abstract-expressionist ethos in time. In films like RAGE NET and THE DANTE QUARTET you can actually see that intense moment of experience, the explosion of creation, unfold, in real time, before your eyes.

Now here is the blind spot. New Zealand film academics have ignored Brakhage and his peers, I have heard some scoff at Brakhage then leap to the pulpit when Deleuze puts subjectivity in words (and not images). I would even recommend Brakhage to someone who wants to study Trinh T Minh Ha. Quite simply, learn Brakhage's camera and editing techniques, apply them to your subject then put a poetic social or political commentary over it. (Yes, the personal can be political).

VI

I consider Sergei Eisenstein, Leni Riefenstahl and Stan Brakhage (none of whom went to film school) to be three of the greatest filmmakers of the Twentieth Century. They all suffered great institutional and personal abuse through the course of their lives. More interestingly, each of these filmmakers edited their own work. Hiring a professional editor to cut their thoughts and images was inconceivable to these artists. Yet academic film courses in New Zealand seem to stress the community aspect of filmmaking, not the artistic one. Filmmaking as a cooperative, group activity. In filmmaking exercises students are set-off on a production line designed to steer them toward industrial forms of cinema. (Both Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin encouraged applying group dynamics to art creation). Does anyone believe in the possibility of film as art here? Or are our cinematic productions to be the work of a nation of shopkeepers - complacently bourgeois, middle-class, middle of the road and middle brow.

Since 1990 there has been a rapid proliferation of film and media courses in New Zealand, popping up like well ordered, well mannered tulips. The Film Archive and Moving Image Centre also have taken off. Suddenly we had a whole fruit bowl of film and media academics, archivists, professionals and curators. I surmise, therefore, that there will now be a high standard of thought, discussion and debate centered on inventive and necessary media art. Where is it?

Is there a cultural institution in New Zealand with an interest in media art? Could the City Gallery, Te Papa, The Film Archive and/or the Moving Image Centre do something really proactive for our media arts by regularly arranging to bring out a touring film and video programme from the United States? A programme like the Whitney Bienale of Film and Video Art, or the Ann Arbor Film and Video Festival or, for variety, both. It would not be that hard, nor expensive to import some contemporary American media art which carry concepts, techniques and emotions that can be applied across the arts. The administrators wouldn't have to think, nor put themselves out on a limb, merely administer. (Although some independent curatorial research and original critical insights would be welcome).

Programmes such as these include vital, interesting and individual media art works, works that show that McTheory need not be all pervasive. You can even come up with your own theory. It is OK to think for yourself. That is the beginning of creativity.

The mandates of various cultural instututions, with the exception of the Moving Image Centre, have reasons for not supporting contemporary forms of American avant-garde cinema. University courses are designed to provide a grounding in a subject, not to act as a presenter of contemporary work. The Film Archive's mission is to preserve and project New Zealand cinema. Public art galleries do not have the facilities to store films. (Hence public art galleries projecting Len Lye's films as VHS videotapes which is the equivalent of exhibiting a photocopy of a painting by Colin McCahon or Tony Fomison). Then again, budgets are tight, policies need to be formulated, processes instigated and a consensus arrived at. And so on.

VII

In the past year I have heard of major new films by Ken Jacobs, Ernie Gehr and Pat O'Neill. Films which have been widely shown in Europe and the United States. But these films, and their makers, are not considered by cineastes, curators or critics in this country. And you cannot view them on the Internet nor buy them on DVD. The present cost of seeing these films, for a New Zealander, would be a return ticket to San Francisco plus the price of admission to the San Francisco Cinematheque. A high price to pay to advance one's education in art. (What is so frustrating is to see Pat O'Neill or Stan Brakhage's concepts mangled in countless rock videos and feature films, lapped up in true consumerist zeal by media professors and commentators).

What could these films be like? I do not know because I have not seen them. I could, however, venture that they may be films that raise the possibility that seeing and thinking can be interrelated. They may do this by presenting the viewer with conceptual and perceptual paradoxes which could lead to any kind of response. They would not be programmatic. Such films would assume that the viewer is a complex and emotional being capable of thinking, questioning and arguing with the film. They may be films that help break the mold that encloses us.

Am I somehow amiss to suggest that the importation and adoption of a couple of American avant-garde film programmes will somehow right all of the wrongs tallied above? It seems unlikely that such programmes would affect the prevailing mentality but I believe that they could produce some hope, some idea, some picture, a mental or conceptual framework to help us reach our destination. A vision of an altered future. What the curators do not programme and what the educators do not teach affects what the makers produce. In understanding contemporary forms of avant-garde cinema the curators and teachers would learn to recognize the existence of similarly motivated work here as well as expanding notions of the possibilities of art. And, if they were open and generous, they may even support it. Without that there is little hope for anything else but more of the same, and as it is it is not much more than a corruption of art and the denigration of education.

Artists and cultural workers here would benefit from engaging with contemporary work such as that described above. Not only would such work help them to live in this world but it may also prepare them to support similar work from here. If our cultural institutions can not do it themselves would they commission someone to do it for us, on their behalf? This is not to preclude our own media arts, but to work in tandem with them. To facilitate and support our own media artists.

I am not asking for very much. And what I ask for would be good for us aesthetically, intellectually and socially. What is wrong with that?

The choices that are being made in New Zealand are obvious and commonplace. A book on Jane Campion, something on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, a women's film programme etc. Nothing that really challenges us intellectually or aesthetically. Choices that reek of uninquiring minds, complacent attitudes and received knowledge. An apt reflection of the academy but not of the possibilities of art.

It is not the work that is exhibited widely in multiplex cinemas and on television that is most interesting. Interesting media work tends to be made by individuals, working alone, following their own avenues of inquiry. Artists who produce work stamped with their intelligence and individuality. Work which traces its makers struggle with the subject. Not a readymade local version that reeks of something from somewhere else, but non ironic, authentic work. Something from deep within that may create conflict with the social world.

Although there have been many strands of New Zealand cinema media arts professionals are not giving serious attention where it is deserved. As, I would submit, it is their duty to do. If an art or cultural worker is motivated by a belief in their culture and a belief that an artist or cultural worker is the servant of their culture then it is a simple matter to identify what needs to be done. Be not an arbiter, but a presenter. Talk to artists, find out what they are doing, and why. Interview artists, write about their work, facilitate screenings and pay them. Most of the answers to the questions that have yet to be asked can be found in New Zealand film history, even in the 15 years between 1970 and 1985.

Media arts professionals who make their living as gift wrappers of our media arts should start acting like servants of their culture. Their mission the preservation, support and advancement of our media art and artists. To go on and create international opportunities for local media artists with work that comes directly from our insides, work about our fears and insecurities.

We do not need any more surface candy shipped out here. Send it back. Close down the temple of cinematic lies and manipulations. The academy of psychic mutilation. Replace it with the scary stuff. Send the scream of your denial. Send the yelps from the scraps that have been trammeled over and forgotten for years. Send the odds and ends from all those artists who are going to die. Send it before they shrivel up in some lost, dark corner. Send the Art that has been killed. Send the Art that has committed suicide, that hates itself. And then, after that, send the traces of that mangled assortment that dissolved in my hands in Amerika.

Remember when President Reagan stood next to the Berlin Wall and called out, Tear down this wall Mr. Gorbachev. Well, standing next to the Unemployment Office, I say to the film professors, the film archivists, the film curators and the Moving Image Centre. I say, Tear down your walls, Mr/Ms Fruit Bowl. Be worthy of your artists. Think of yourself as a servant of your culture. We need widespread screenings and documentation. We need criticism and debate about film artists living and dead. We need gift wrappers who give in the same way that artists do. That is scary stuff when you are living in a fruit bowl.

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