Watch: Uzel na kapesníku by Hermína Týrlová
What was bizarre is that these films and shorts were often broadcast during prime-time TV slots, long before the 9 o’clock watershed, and I saw films by Jan Švankmajer, Věra Chytilová, Jiří Brdečka, Ladislas Starevich, Eva Švankmajerová, Jiří Barta, Vera Neubauer, Hermína Týrlová, Břetislav Pojar, later the Brothers Quay, and many, many others as a minor in my living room. This was a gateway drug for me and totally sparked my interest in experimental filmmaking.
Watch: Golem by Jiri Barta
Watch: Vzpoura Hraček by Hermína Týrlová
Some of the animated films that started me on this pilgrimage are extremely dark. I recently rewatched FOOD (1992) by Švankmajer and thought, if I showed his films to my kids, maybe Tusla might be called? However, being exposed to this type of filmmaking and film style definitely changed my chemistry.
No Porão / Down to the Cellar by Jan Švankmajer
Firstly, growing up in a theocracy was, I imagine, quite similar in many ways to growing up under the Iron Curtain: there was censorship, a lack of bodily autonomy, moments of rebellion could easily be quashed, and so artists and art-making were regarded as dangerous and something to be derided or treated with suspicion. The stakes for a lot of these Cold War-era filmmakers were great. The risk associated with making work that had overt political narratives carried the threat that the artist could be shipped off to Siberia, or, as experienced by Švankmajer himself, banned from making films for eight years.
Watch: To See or Not To See by Bretislav Pojar
What was remarkable for me, though I am not sure if I had the linguistic ability to describe it then, was to see how artists used slapstick humor and surrealism as a kind of crowbar to leverage metaphor: a way of talking about political oppression and state surveillance—heavy topics, but making you laugh out loud or mesmerising you with the power of the visual fiction they concocted. You were seduced, intoxicated, and hypnotized by these very strange worlds the filmmakers manifested.
Popular culture is a Trojan Horse that carries ideas that can actually affect the way we think and feel about the world, and importantly, it is a means by which all classes can access culture.
This was riveting to me as a child. Also, there was something kind of magical that happened in some of these films. Domestic objects magically came to life, scale was played with, and our understanding of what is fact and fiction blurred. As a kid growing up in a working-class home, seeing this kind of art beamed for free into my living room has left an impression on me to this day. When I think about the importance of accessing visual culture for free and how we must preserve that at all costs, I think of this time period.
Watch: Alice by Jan Švankmajer
Seeing potent films that carried subliminal messages about challenging oppression, critical thinking, moments of claustrophobia, and yet resilience manifested by the creative process left an indelible impression on me. It seems an important reminder, too, that the vehicle through which this art arrived to me, freely, is something we often take for granted, and that the importance of public broadcasting in shaping the lived experience of us all is something that must be fought for and supported by all citizens.
Popular culture is a Trojan Horse that carries ideas that can actually affect the way we think and feel about the world, and importantly, it is a means by which all classes can access culture. I would be all for bringing this type of presentation of art films back to our broadcaster, or perhaps looking at ways by which artists could be commissioned to make challenging work that could be seen by all citizens through this vehicle.
Aspirational, perhaps, but maybe being Artist-in-Residence is the first step towards a proposition like this?
Music by Cathal Murphy, Assisted by Cathal Murphy.
What has especially left an impression on me is how these film artists used creativity as an act of rebellion. It has become a long-held belief of mine to enact the same philosophy of defiance through art-making as a pathway through trauma. When I first started making my early film works, it was initially an attempt to rationalise the private and the political that is the root to my work. I was also interested in examining endurance and its relationship to the lens. My very first "performative film" work, Levitating (2007), was made as a response to trying to be perfect, have my house perfect, everything manicured, every domestic chore completed with perfection, all while hovering six inches above the ground. The work was a splicing together of thousands and thousands of photographs, each captured, with the assistance of my partner Cathal Murphy, at the moment where I was caught by the camera jumping six inches above the ground while undertaking my domestic tasks.
I am sure my neighbors in Claregalway, County Galway, at the time thought I was going nuts, as they saw me doing my shopping in the local Joyce's Supermarket: 1-2-3- JUMP, cutting the grass: 1-2-3- JUMP, putting out the bins: 1-2-3- JUMP, jump, photograph, jump, repeat.
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Watch a clip from Levitating by Aideen Barry
There was something reassuring about the type of work I was doing as I tried to be in two places at the same time, in front of and behind the camera—the impossibility of being both performer and director simultaneously. I was also trying to comment on how women are consitutionally enshired in the home and the implications of state determination of gender roles. This early moving image work of mine would be a seminal piece that would determine the type of work I undertake now as a film director. But the root of this film-making style, the splicing together of still images, to construct a visual fiction, is a homage to the style of work that I was exposed to as a child.
For this Artist-in-Residence project, I have curated a series of films, moments, playlists, invited artists, and constructed a gallery of current exhibitions of work that speaks to this concept. I will introduce each moment with a rationale about the work, but I do not wish to contaminate the experience for you either; perhaps you need to also go down some rabbit holes and interweave your own strands from these threads I leave for you.
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