Like many other media technology innovations, Bauhaus fundamentally welcomed film, experimented with various forms and used them for public image purposes. However, film (and in particular its subsequent reception by Bauhaus) led a relatively shadowy existence compared with other branches of the arts, and it was long thought that no actual Bauhaus films were ever produced. In fact, Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy unsuccessfully attempted to establish an »experimental laboratory for film art« at Bauhaus. Nevertheless, film played a major role in the school’s programme, which (as Gropius put it) sought to achieve »science of viewing«.
Thanks to intensive research, the body of »Bauhaus films« has continued to grow in recent years, and now includes works by 25 Staatliche Bauhaus artists. The films produced are divided into three key areas: reform architecture films, socially critical documentary reports, and abstract film experiments. The latter’s links with stage performances, light projections and unusual projection surfaces demonstrate Bauhaus’s consistently hybrid view of film. This means that it is also fascinatingly topical today: film long ago waved goodbye to the traditional cinema space and is re-appearing in a variety of presentation contexts.
The »Bauhaus + Film. New Perspectives« conference is also paying particular attention to the women who created and supported film productions at Bauhaus. Their involvement has been barely recognised in Bauhaus research thus far, so scholarly reappraisal of their film artworks is only now gaining in-depth attention.
As well as specialist presentations by international researchers, the conference will also be screening various Bauhaus films. From Tuesday 2 April 2019 to Thursday 4 April 2019 at 5 pm and 7 pm there will be a film series at Kino mon ami running alongside the conference. Entry to the cinema is free to conference participants. The film series includes Bauhaus films, some of which were only recently discovered in archives, and also more recent documentary films by Bauhaus students and teachers. The conference is funded by the Ernst-Abbe-Stiftung Jena and the film series is funded by the Thuringia State Office for Political Education.
You can register for the conference by emailing claire.mueller(at)uni-weimar.de.
Further information about the conference and programme can be found on the professorship website: https://www.uni-weimar.de/de/medien/professuren/medienwissenschaft/europaeische-medienkultur/bauhaus-film-neue-perspektiven/
»Bauhaus + Film. New Perspectives« is organised by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Eva Krivanec, Junior Professor of European Media Culture, Faculty of Media, in conjunction with Thomas Tode, film scholar and filmmaker, Hamburg.
Contact:
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Eva Krivanec
Junior Professor of European Media Culture
Bauhausstraße 11, R. 209
99423 Weimar
Tel: +49 (0) 36 43/58 37 05
Email: eva.krivanec[at]uni-weimar.de