Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2008 in the subject Art -
Photography and Film, grade: cum laude, University of Edinburgh,
language: English, abstract: Photomontage has more to do with film than
with any other art form - they have in common the technique of montage.
(Sergei Tretyakov) By considering that photomontage and film use the
technique of cutting and gluing as dominant artistic device, and that
montage, a technique unifying art and technology for the first time,
emerged as a dominant artistic feature of the avant-garde, this thesis
will explore the ideological and perceptual implications of its advent
in avant-garde art and film. The technological advances of the beginning
of the twentieth century, and particularly the advent of photography,
allowed avant-garde artists to break free from traditional concepts of
artistic production - they dispensed with the old criteria of
uniqueness, originality, handicraft and personal style. At a time when
many avant-garde artists abruptly ceased to paint, photomontage emerged
as the privileged locus for a caesura with traditional art forms.
Photomontage envisioned film aesthetics insofar as it combines and
juxtaposes images of various perspectival planes and angles (Raoul
Hausmann described his early photomontages as "motionless moving
pictures"). A corresponding observation can be made on the use of
montage in cinema, a technique which crucially underpins the illusion of
movement created through the succession of photographic stills. The
present thesis will investigate photomontage and film in order to
examine the effect technological reproduction played in revolutionising
artistic production, perception and ideology - where the technique and
philosophy of montage was key.
