ROOTS OF MULTIMEDIA IN VISUAL EXPERIMENTATION OF BELGRADE SURREALISTS

Abstract

In this paper, we will try to emphasize the research spirit, tendency towards free experimentation and artistic development, and the ambition of the authors of the Serbian surrealist circle in the direction of discovering new artistic media, reshaping and combining verbal and visual material into new and unexpected forms of artistic expression that anticipate the emergence of multimedia content in the latter times. The paper analyzes certain forms and techniques of artistic experimentation of the Belgrade surrealists, bringing them into connection and comparing them with the techniques represented in French surrealism. Surrealists, whose headquarters were in Paris, in the surrealist circle gathered around André Breton, directly collaborated, had active correspondence and exchange of materials with the circle of Belgrade surrealists. In this correspondence, personal acquaintances, socializing and joint creative activities, new ideas emerged, by all accounts daring and avant-garde in relation to the previous premises of classical artistic expression and techniques. In the bilateral cultural exchange between French and Yugoslav artists, French authors did not always lead the way in everything, but rather individuality, inclination towards the new and unexpected, heuristic delight in dreams and nightmarish visions as a source of inspiration, led to original solutions by certain authors of Belgrade Surrealism. In the analysis of other found and applied techniques that use the discovery of a surrealist object, such as assemblage, frame and movement can be seen as a precursor to film. We conclude that Belgrade surrealism, an artistic phenomenon from the late twenties and early thirties of the twentieth century as one of the local factions of surrealism in Europe, is not just a mere echo of French surrealism. The paper references to the work of Stevan Živadinović, alias Vane Bor, especially in the field of experiments with photogram, as well as the hypothesis about his discovery of frame-by-frame animation. In this period, the first art magazines and the roots of new visual-literary forms of multimedia content such as comics, storyboards, animation, author's film appeared. Previously existing media such as photography and graphics in the Surrealists acquire new ways of artistic use and expression, leading to the application of photography in the sphere of film, and the combination of graphics and photography in the direction of innovative illustration and photomontage. Through new angles of observation that underline the cinematic content and expression of their works, we can take a deeper look at the contribution of the visual experimentation of the group of Belgrade surrealists to the opening of horizons towards the emergence of contemporary multimedia art forms. By exploring and introducing new techniques and ways of expression, thanks to an open and original spirit, as well as a desire for experimentation, the visual creations of the Belgrade surrealist circle heralded the interdisciplinary and multimedia nature that we encounter in contemporary art.