Filmoteka Muzeum

Like Exercise 2, Exercise 3 forms part of the last and the most important – according to Zbigniew Libera – stage of the activities of the Open Form Studio. As in the previous film from the cycle of “Activities Provoked by the Camera”, students “act” here without a script and involve the camera into the exercise. However, unlike in Exercise 2, here students are more active at co-creating, improvising and reacting spontaneously to the preceding events. The participants freely approach the camera to “present” their activities with a piece of paper, a plastic element, a photo camera, or produce various sounds.

In addition, Zbigniew Libera takes active part in the exercise, thus referencing Hansen’s rejection of experts’ domination as well as Joseph Jacotot’s concept of “ignorant schoolmaster”, assuming equal level of intelligence of the students and the teachers. The artist inspires others with his own actions and provokes their creative activities, which can be observed, e.g. when they jointly create an installation of paper, tape and sticks.

Such actions “allowed for a more direct form of communication, which was entirely aimed at the maximal amplification of the moment of inter-subjective encounter, since it was focused on transmitting the simplest signals, where every action happened right after another.” It makes itself manifest especially in Exercise 3, where students aptly use their experience from the previous activities.

References: Ł. Ronduda, Zbigniew Libera’s Open Form Studio, Prague 2011; J. Verwoert, Gestures Towards a New Life, in: Ł. Ronduda, F. Zeyfang (eds.), 1,2,3… Avant-Gardes: Film Art between Experiment and Archive, Warsaw 2007.

(MK)