Moving Pictures Experiment
Today, film and video media (known under the wider term of “moving images”) is one of the most common forms of expression in contemporary art, owing largely to its recent widespread availability, developments in digital technology and its reproducibility. Since the end of the 19th century (film and its predecessors) up until the present day artists have been experimenting with moving images, exploring the medium itself as well as using it to document various performances, actions and other temporary and ephemeral practices. The history of moving images is a history defined by availability and democratisation within society, starting from its early, largely elitist use when it represented a particularly expensive technology, while today it is a widely available and popular technology.
In socialist Yugoslavia, beginning in the mid-20th century, a broad network of film and cinema clubs spread throughout the country, and served to educate people in film and film technology. The socialist culture of cinema clubs played an enormously important role in the process of democratisation, since many famous directors, actors and film people from Yugoslavia gained first-hand experience working with film in these clubs. Artists that learned and experimented in the craft in cinema clubs and later, in professional film production (at e.g. Neoplantafilm and Panfilm in Vojvodina) went on to produce some of the masterpieces of international film history (Karpo Ačimović Godina, Želimir Žilnik, Dušan Makavejev, Aleksandar Petrović, Borislav Šajtinac etc). The tradition of art film, author film, documentary drama, short experimental film, animation and the innovative experimentation that began back then continues to this day. Similarly, video art emerged and came into its own starting in the late 1960s and 1970s, and later became a part of education and the curriculum in Yugoslavian art schools in the late 1970s), opening up a space in which young artists could explore this new medium.
The Museum of Contemporary Art’ collection includes copies of some so-called author films and video art pieces that played an important role in the invention of new film languages, aesthetics and genres.
