By Other Means or not at All: Experimental Moving Image Practices in Switzerland 1960 – 1970

Since the 1950’s in Switzerland, under the pen of filmmakers and critics, it is possible to identify several different categories of alternative filmic practices: “experimental cinema,” “marginal cinema,” “independent cinema,” or “different cinema”. “Experimental cinema,” for instance, is an institutional term used by the film section of the Swiss government when granting funds to film projects whose quality is deemed worthy of financial support. With regards to this situation, canonical modes of writing about the history of cultural practices prove insufficient. Hence, an alternative approach is necessary for the case of Switzerland, one that cannot be compared with the emergence in New York of the Structural Film, the Materialist - Structuralist film in London or the German formal scene (“das Andere Kino”). Swiss independent production stands at the margins of the film industry, without constituting an alternative to a non - existent film industry, and is only punctually present in the art world. This presentation will thus introduce to a Korean audience a range of practices which begs us to contest traditional categories of artists’ film, experimental film as well as concrete or sound poetry, suggesting a form of participation without belonging within notions that cut across art, film and critical theoretical concepts. This introduction will be based on and discuss rarely shown works including: René Bauermeister, Visual Connection (1972) Werner von Mutzenbecher, Kunsthalle 2/69 (1969) Hans Helmut Klaus Schoenherr, Das Portrait der Cordua (1969) Henri Chopin, Luc Peire, Tjerk Wicky, Pêche de nuit(1957) Rolf Winnewisser, Bildenstehung (1981–1985).

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