Grup de Treball (Grup d'artistes)
Film Col·lectiu
Collective Film
1974
In 1974, the already-established Grup de Treball (Working Group) attempted a new collective work, a film project that was only semi-realised, and which resulted in a 16 mm film that was only partially edited and with an incomplete soundtrack. Taking part were Francesc Abad, Antoni Mercader, Carles Santos, Dorothée Selz and Grup de Producció, a militant film collective that had often collaborated with Grup de Treball. Jordi Benito and Muntadas also participated in the project, although their contributions were left out of the film and have not survived.
Conceived in an epistolary form, it consists of a series of different individual praxis rather than a single, collaborative production. Only the contribution of Carles Santos was completed, while those of Abad, Selz and Mercader were not definitively edited. The recordings by Grup de Producció of political demonstrations in the streets of Barcelona were included, and, although not initially part of the project, over the years they appeared by chance in Film col·lectiu and were thus incorporated into the work.
Santos presented Chopin’s Prelude Opus 28 no. 18, in which a sequence of photographic images enter successively to the left of the viewer's field of vision, showing the artist’s hands playing this piece by Chopin on the piano. Abad’s contribution includes two works: a sound recording made in a suburb during the years of desarrollismo (Spain’s Development Plans) and actions performed with lenses on a candle. Entitled Experiències amb la llum (Experiments with Light), a lighted candle is shown in front and behind lenses that are concave, convex, transparent, translucent and opaque. For his part, Mercader made a recording as, one by one, documents are removed from a portfolio; this is the documentation that the various artists sent to Mercader regarding their collaboration in this work. Finally, Dorothée Selz presented the piece Desplaçaments dels aparells d’imatges i so (Displacements of Imaging and Sound Apparatus).
Conceived in an epistolary form, it consists of a series of different individual praxis rather than a single, collaborative production. Only the contribution of Carles Santos was completed, while those of Abad, Selz and Mercader were not definitively edited. The recordings by Grup de Producció of political demonstrations in the streets of Barcelona were included, and, although not initially part of the project, over the years they appeared by chance in Film col·lectiu and were thus incorporated into the work.
Santos presented Chopin’s Prelude Opus 28 no. 18, in which a sequence of photographic images enter successively to the left of the viewer's field of vision, showing the artist’s hands playing this piece by Chopin on the piano. Abad’s contribution includes two works: a sound recording made in a suburb during the years of desarrollismo (Spain’s Development Plans) and actions performed with lenses on a candle. Entitled Experiències amb la llum (Experiments with Light), a lighted candle is shown in front and behind lenses that are concave, convex, transparent, translucent and opaque. For his part, Mercader made a recording as, one by one, documents are removed from a portfolio; this is the documentation that the various artists sent to Mercader regarding their collaboration in this work. Finally, Dorothée Selz presented the piece Desplaçaments dels aparells d’imatges i so (Displacements of Imaging and Sound Apparatus).
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videos
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[DIG_CF1466.019 / Enregistrament audiovisual] DIG_CF1466_019.mp4
[DIG_CF1466.019 / Enregistrament audiovisual] DIG_CF1466_019.mp4
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