Experiment in Film and in the Art of the Moving Image

Marek Hendrykowski

Abstract

Hendrykowski argues that we are living in times of unprecedented inflation of the concept of artistic experiment, which hinders rational assessment of works deemed to be innovative in film and new media art. He also asks how to distinguish an experiment in art from pseudo-experiment and wonders if there are any intersubjective criteria that would enable an unambiguous identification of the difference between these two categories? The author of this polemical article accepts the need and right to explore possibilities of art. However it is a right to explore and not cheat. The aim of the polemic is to draw attention to the phenomenon of growing rate of falsification of experiment in the art of the moving image. Marek Hendrykowski criticizes the deceptive myth of innovations produced and promoted at all costs. All too often, what passes for an artistic innovation, it is just a gadget draped in the respectable suit of “innovative new media art”. The intention of the author’s argument is not an attack on experimentation, but on the contrary - it is the defense of the true experiment, as the present-day cultural space has been largely dominated and appropriated by a flood of a variety of pseudo-artistic creations. Not everything in this area is relative and not everything depends on an arbitrary assessment, which - when skillfully imposed - can easily change into the consensus in the artistic community. According to the author the difference does not lie in the “innovative” use of technology, but in innovation in the sphere of the language of moving images. It, and it alone, can make the work of art truly important and significant.