Dr Barnaby Dicker, Proposal for Dal/Duchamp Symposium,

Royal Academy of Arts, London, 3 4 November, 2017

Salvador Dal and Marcel Duchamp:
Reversing the laws of cinematography (frame-by-frame)

Previous debate around Marcel Duchamps and Salvador Dals approaches to

cinema has largely taken three productive paths. Focus has been placed either on
the two artists tangible, seminal interventions within the established conventions
and canons of artists film practice, their formulation of imaginary films
(including unrealised projects), or the identification of pertinent references and
trails of influence in and around their work. This paper makes the case that these
art historical pathways have inadvertently side-lined more radical
reconceptualisations of cinematography developed by both artists. Informed by
their engagement with the proto-cinematographic field, Duchamp and Dals
overlooked conceptual blueprints for an alternative theory of cinematography
complement one another by emphasizing the power and potential of the mediums
frame-by-frame articulation within the scopic regimes of modernity, to borrow
Martin Jays phrase. This paper scrutinizes examples of how Duchamp and Dal
envisaged cinematography in profound and astonishing ways that run completely
at odds with the long-standing, dominant model, predicated on the reproduction
of movement. Duchamp and Dals invitations to approach cinematography as if it
were a different object, replete with alternative fundamental aims and
expectations, carry enduring significance for the understanding and development
of experimental film practice. Taking a valuable cue from Rosalind Krausss
identification of a devolutionary counter-modernist on/off pulse in the work of
Duchamp, Dal and others, this paper draws on the critical writings of both artists
and pays particular attention to Duchamps major work, The Large Glass (1915-
1923) and to Dals lesser known, but, I would argue, equally rewarding,
Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933). These examples show how both artists
radically recast the cinematographic apparatus as an atavistic and protean
topography.

Biography
Barnaby Dicker is a researcher, lecturer, artist-filmmaker and curator. His
research revolves around conceptual and material innovations in and through
graphic technologies and arts, including cinematography and photography, with
particular emphasis on avant-guard practices. This has led to work on topics such
as animation, proto-cinematography, experimental film, graphic reproduction
technologies, comic strips and paleoart. He is the editor of a special issue of Art in
Translation (8:1, 2016) on 'Cinematographic Art and a member of the UK Arts
and Humanities Research Council-funded International Research Network Film
and the Other Arts: Intermediality, Medium Specificity, Creativity. Barnaby sits
on the editorial board of Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal and has taught
at the Royal College of Art, University of South Wales, University for the Creative
Arts, Kingston School of Art, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Cardiff
School of Art and Design.
Dr Barnaby Dicker CV
barnabydicker@yahoo.co.uk / M: +44 [0] 7909626562
15 Chaddesley Terrace, Swansea, SA1 6HB, UK

Qualifications/Education
-PhD entitled Cinematographic Atavism, Graphic Proteanism - Visibly Frame-Based
Cinematography: Practice, History, Theory. Department of Media Arts, Royal
Holloway, University of London, 20052010. Awarded: November 2010. Examiners:
Dr Stephen Forcer, University of Birmingham, and Prof. Patrick ffrench, Kings
College, London. Supervisor: Prof. Christopher Townsend. Advisor: Prof. Gideon
Koppel.
-PGCert. in Teaching (inSTIL), Royal Holloway, University of London, 2007.
-[Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.]
-MA in Photography, Swansea Metropolitan University, 2003-2005.
-BA (Hons.) in Film and Video (2.1), University of Wales College, Newport, 1999-
2002.
Teaching (Recent/Principle)
-2016 (September)-2017 (July). Cardiff School of Art and Design, Cardiff
Metropolitan University.
-2011 (October)-2016 (July). Royal College of Art, London.
-2010 (October)-2016 (May). University of South Wales, Newport/Cardiff.
Teaching (Additional)
-2015. Kingston School of Art and Design, Kingston University.
-2013-2015. Arts University Bournemouth, (PhD supervision).
-2011-2016. University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
-2007-2013. Royal Holloway, University of London.
Publications
-[forthcoming] Pierre Mac Orlans Social Fantastic and Disney Animation in Eds.
Christopher Holliday and Alexander Sergeant, Fantasy/Animation: History, Theory,
Culture (Routledge, 2017).
-Animated Posters: Business as Usual? in Ed. David Crowley, The Poster
Remediated (25th International Poster Biennale Catalogue), (Poster Museum,
Warsaw, 2016).
-(as guest editor) Art in Translation, Special Issue: Cinematographic Art. Vol. 8, No.1
(2016).
-Vernacular Studies: 49/95 Tausendjahrekino (1995) and 50/96 Snapspots (for
Bruce) (1996) in Eds. Nicky Hamlyn, Simon Payne and Al Rees, Kurt Kren:
Structural Films (Intellect, 2016).
-Notes on Eadweard Muybridges Chickens; scared by torpedo, Plate 781 of Animal
Locomotion (1887) in Eds. Alberto Beltrame, Giuseppe Fidotta, Andrea Mariani, At
The Border of (Film) History: Temporality, Archaeology, Theories (Proceedings of the
XXI Udine International Film Studies Conference) (Udine: Forum, 2015).
-Andr Breton, Rodolphe Tpffer, and the Automatic Message in Ed. Gavin
Parkinson, Surrealism, Science Fiction, and Comics (Liverpool UP, 2015).

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 -Liminality and Legibility in RCA Humanities Research Forum Journal, Issue 1:
Prova (October 2013).
-[with Matt Hulse] The Dummy Jim Cycloscope in: Book Live! Eds. Richard Sawdon
Smith and Emmanuelle Waeckerle (Farnham/London: Book Room/London South
Bank University, 2013).
-[with Nick Lee] But the Image Wants Danger: Georges Bataille, Werner Herzog,
and Poetical Response to Paleoart in: Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology,
Consciousness and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 1 (March 2012).
-Franciszka Themersons Ubu Comic Strip: Autography, Caricature, and the Avant-
Garde, in Ed. Rene M. Silverman, The Popular Avant-Garde (Rodopi: Amsterdam
and New York, 2010).
-Dryden Goodwin in Conversation with Barnaby Dicker in: Animation: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3 (November 2009),pp. 303-320.
Papers/Guest Lectures
-A Quivering Terminus: Walerian Borowczyks Games of Angels, Animated
Documentary and the Social Fantastic at Ecstatic Truth Lessons of Darkness and
Light symposium, Royal College of Art, 27 May 2017.
-Notes on Differential Specificity: The Artwork/Statement Nexus as Intermedial Site
at Film and the Other Arts: Intermediality, Medium Specificity, Creativity AHRC
Research Network meeting, The Intermedial Avant-Gardes, University of
Edinburgh, 24 February 2017.
-Flicker at Edges: an Animation Seminar, part of Edge of Frame Weekend, Whitechapel
Gallery, December 2016.
-Ending as You Mean to Go On: The Last Plate of Muybridge's Animal Locomotion
October at Muybridge in Kingston symposium, Kingston University, 2016.
-Pierre Mac Orlans fantastique social, Animation, and the Tension between
Drawing and Photography at Quest and Investigation (European Network for Avant-
Garde and Modernism Studies Bi-Annual Conference), Rennes, June 2016.
-Eadweard Muybridges Chickens; Scared by Torpedo (c.1886): An Archaeology of
Dispersal at XXI Udine International Film Studies Conference: At the Borders of
(Film) History, Udine, Italy, 2-4 April, 2014.
-Robert Breer, Cinematographic Collage and the 'Flatbed Picture Plane', c.1954-
1957, guest lecture for MA Art History students at The Courtauld Institute of Art,
London, 4 February 2014.
-The Popodrome: A Centre of Permanent Creation paper deliveredat The Ludic
Museum conference, Tate Liverpool, 31 January-1 February 2014.
-(with Cristina Izura, Vivienne Rodgers, and Jordan Randell) A Comparative
Exploration of the Distinctive Qualities of Oral, Handwritten and Typed Language in
Memory and Recall paper delivered at Writing 3rd Global Conference/Visual
Literacies 7th Global Conference, Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Athens, Greece, 11 November
2013.
-Imagining the Birth of Art: Robert Filliou's Whispered History of Art as Thought
Experiment, invited talk, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 5 June 2013. Part of events
linked to the exhibition Robert Filliou: The Institute of Endless Possibilities.
-Film and Video Portraiture: On what terms? Invited research seminar,
Aberystwyth University, 1 May 2013.
-(with Cristina Izura, Vivienne Rodgers and Jordan Randell) A Comparative
Exploration of the Distinctive Qualities of Oral, Handwritten and Typed Language in

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 Memory and Recall. Research seminar delivered at the Language Research Centre,
Swansea University, 6 February 2013.
-(with Matt Hulse) Feature Film as Artists Book? On Dummy Jim presented at
Book Live! International Symposium, London South Bank University, 8-9 June 2012.
-The Gaberbocchus Cartoon Books of Franciszka Themerson, Beverly Jackson
Huddleston and Stevie Smith presented at Avant-Garde Visions: The Themersons
and the Gaberbocchus Press conference, Queen Mary, University of London, 15 June
2012.
-Putting the Flatness of History to Work. Peter Tscherkasskys Motion Picture
presented at Adaptation, Authorship & Ownership the 2012 ECRF (European
Cinema Research Forum) Annual Conference, Edge Hill University, UK, 16 18 July
2012.
-Reflecting on Franciszka Themersons Ubu Comic Strip, paper delivered at The
Themersons: 1 Day Before Yesterday 1 Day After Tomorrow event, Institute of
Contemporary Art, London, 18 February 2012.
-Franciszka Themerson's Ubu Comic Strip: Processes of Making, Processes of Art
History, invited guest lecture delivered to MA Art History students at The Courtauld
Institute of Art, London, 2 February 2012.
-Tzara, Arp and the Cinematography of the Dada Page, invited guest speaker at
Postgraduate Research on the European Avant-Garde Symposium, University of
Birmingham, 21 June 2011.
-Muybridge and Chicken Sense. History, Meta-History, Pata-History (An
Archaeology of Dispersal), invited guest lecture, International Project Centre for
Research into Events and Situations (IPCRES), Swansea Metropolitan University, 27
April 2011.
-Pre-Cinema after Post-Modernism: A History of Subjectivity, Knowledge, and
Aesthetics, invited guest lecture delivered to MA Art History students at The
Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2 February 2011.
-Andr Breton, Rodolphe Tpffer, and the Automatic Message presented at
Surrealism, Science Fiction, and Comics, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 22
January 2011.
-Is it an egg? Is it a pumpkin? Yes, itsUBUman: Cartoon and Comic Strip
Influences on Alfred JarrysUbu, presented at High and Low (European Network for
Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies Bi-Annual Conference), Pozna, September
2010.
-Reasons to Return to Erotic Actions: Man Ray, Kurt Kren and the Erotic Flicker
Film, presented at Surrealism Laid Bare 6: Querying Surrealism, Queering
Surrealism conference, West Dean College, 19 June 2010.
-Le Ballet mcanique as citation-collage and Avant-Garde Revue, invited paper at
University of London School of Advanced Study seminar group Modernism and
Cinema, 25 January 2010.
-Futural Cocktail for Further Fluxing presented at Bergson+Futurism. Speed in
Thought conference, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, 5 November 2009.
-Fernand Lger and Dudley Murphys Avant-Garde Revue or Le Ballet mcanique
as citation-collage, presented at Back To The Futurists: Avant-Gardes 1909-2009
conference, Queen Mary College, University of London, 2 July 2009.

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