magyar

CREATIVITY - VISUALITY

Ganz-Mávag Cultural House, Budapest, 1975–1977
The exercises were conducted by Miklós Erdély and Dóra Maurer
Assistant: György Galántai
The coordination and the photos were made by Tamás Papp
Cameraman: Gábor Dobos

Miklós Erdély (1976)

THE EXERCISES:

1. Reacting to the camera

The camera is a gun, let’s flee it.

The camera records whoever is in front of it.

The camera observes the participants: the tall rise in front of the objective, while the short seem even shorter.

The camera moves rigidly in a straight line. Only the tall get to be in front of the lens.

The camera performs a wavelike motion. Everyone must try to be recorded in the frame.

The camera pans randomly: participants react in their individual ways.

2. Motion planning

Complementary movements and touches.

A group moves in the dark. When a flash goes off, they freeze and try to remember the position and then keep moving. When the light is back on, they try to find the position they were in when the flash went off.

Participants perform a short sequence of movements in pairs attuned to each other, which they keep repeating many times with small adjustments. They must adopt their partners’ adjustments.

The same task with all pairs together.

3. Drawing together

Drawing in progress: Everybody has 30 seconds to draw then continues the drawing of his/her neighbor.

Each participant has 10 seconds to contribute to a portrait of the group leader.

With the left hands, everybody leads the right hands of their neighbors.

Indirect drawing how passive are you when your hand is but a tool?

Drawing in pairs: the person holding a piece of charcoal tries to draw a circle, while the person holding the drawing board tries to draw a square.

4. Obstructed Drawing

The portrait in progress is concealed by a collar attached to the wrist.

Drawing on a board turned outside.

Portrait in Pairs: the people opposite draw portraits of each other and also portraits of their drawings on a board turned outside.

Instead of drawing the model, the participants draw the image of the model on the video screen; the camera alters between the model and some of the drawings made of her.

5. Automatic drawing

Drawing to music.

Pairs draw together by moving the board and the charcoal to music.

They concentrate for one minute in the dark, and then they draw for one second.

One-minute paper works.

6. Collective works

Object animation: formally associated objects are placed in front of the camera in succession.

Making a cube by 10 by 10 cm. Everyone can suggest a further movement to reshape the cube.

A jointly developed changing drawing #1
Rule: a line is followed by a spot, a spot by erasure

A jointly developed changing drawing #2
Rule: When two thirds of the sheet are used, one third gets erased by the next drawer.

The tracks of glue, plaster, vacuum cleaner and floor buffer must cross as many times as possible.

7. Active–Passive Exercises

Let’s stand in a circle without moving. Everyone should imitate any involuntary movement by the person on one’s left.

Influencing each other in a small group.
Three-way connections are established within the group: the person across from one on the left must be imitated; the person across from one on the right imitates the imitator.

Pairs perform extremely slow movements, paying attention to each other. Either one may initiate movements, but both have to follow each other’s initiatives.

The film was made by Dóra Maurer based on the original photos documenting the course and on the damaged film footage also made during the course.

Studio Béla Balázs, K Section,
Budapest, 1988

The web-version of the film was created by: Tamás Kaszás, 2001
The webpage was modernized by Márton Kristóf, 2021

Translation by Katalin Orbán
and based on the English voice over of the film