Research London based artists Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska began a self-initiated research into the existence and production of amateur film clubs in socialist Poland in the summer of 2002. During the following two years they made visits to Nowa Huta, Rawicz, Poznan, Puck, Gdansk, Olsztyn, Kedzierzyn Kozle, Katowice, Bytom, Oswiecim, Warszawa, Bydgoszcz and Bielsko-Biala in search of film-makers and their films. As a result of these visits, and joined by curator Lukasz Ronduda, a huge selection of dispersed film -on celluloid 16 and 8 mm- was found, collected and transported to the CSW in Warsaw. Subsequently, the films underwent conservation and a large number have been digitalized with funds from the CSW, the Whitechapel Gallery, London and in-kind sponsorship. Presently the collection consists of approx 100 digitalised films, and a huge amount of celluloid material representing 40 film-makers from 30 different clubs. The films date from 1955 until 1985, most are Black and White and they range in genre from beautiful documentaries, satirical animation, experimental abstraction, tender romances, critical thrillers, and local examples of advertising. Exhibition The research culminated in an exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw in June 2004, the current edition of the project is at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 1 April - 22 May 2005, new editions will be presented at Kunst Werke, Berlin 5 June - 4 September 2005, and at the Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona 27 October - 15 January 2006 The space of the amateur or enthusiast reveals a range of interests and experiences generally invisible amongst the breathless flow of the State sponsored, or professionally mediated. The enthusiast is often working outside of `official` culture and its products, frequently adopting a counter-cultural tone of tactical resistance and criticism -features usually associated with the avant-garde movements in art. In Warsaw, the Enthusiasts project comprised of found and collected films, a reconstructed club-house interior, three film programs one hour-long each presented in an exhibition setting, and a separate Archive Lounge. The latter has sown seed for the future Enthusiasts: The Archive project which we hope, given support, will become a permanent installation at the CCA`s new Laboratorium building. As part of the exhibition we produced a 160-page catalogue outlining a cultural context for the film clubs. It is the only publication of its kind in Poland containing new writing and documentary material on the amateur Film Club phenomena. Archive The Archive Lounge enabled visitors to watch a large selection of the digitalized films on DVD that had been collected but not screened as part of the exhibition. It was intended as a critical artwork setting in motion a dialectical relationship between `official` institutional cultural memory, and as a record of the experiences of people caught within a historical process. The Archives of Polish State Television 1945-1989 and WFiD are currently owned by a private company, who effectively limit access through the price they charge for viewing material, and reproduction rights. This raises fundamental questions about the public domain, and ethical questions about the management of cultural memory, creativity and history. Our intention with the Enthusiasts: The Archive is twofold.
Firstly, to build a film archive from what is 'missing' from the official
record,
while using the technologies of the contemporary archive - databases,
taxonomies and cataloguing systems as artistic tools; allowing the
creative combination and recombination of existing artifacts. And secondly,
to establish an 'open' archive of amateur film in one place. Open in
terms of donation of material, and open in terms of access. We feel
an imperative to go further and make parts of the archive 'open' under
the Creative Commons License, which would enable digitized films to
be sampled and re-used in new creative endeavors in art, education
and research practices. Enthusiasts: The Archive is the pilot project of Creative Commons Poland. (www.archive.org)
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Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska *** Łukasz Ronduda *** Marysia Lewandowska speaking with Franciszek Dzida at *** Marysia Lewandowska speaking with members of AKF Awa, Poznan February 2003 *** FROM ENTHUSIASM TO THE CREATIVE COMMONS
----------------OTHER SITES---------------- Creative
Commons Polska:
http://creativecommons.pl/ Whitechapel: www.whitechapel.org
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