Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design
"Álommásolatok" ("Dream Reconstructions")
A research on a cognitive film in the light of Miklós Erdély's art theoretical writings
Project overview
Student name
Réka Katalin Mucsi
Mentor
Programme
Degree level
Department
Year of project
2022
Researching the cognitive aspects of Dream Reconstructions experimental film authored by Miklós Erdély our attention is directed by his film-synopsises and thesis about cognitive film and to the montage that gives his film a structure.
A thick description of his film helps us identifying the main principles of its design - which showing similarities with the elaborating functions of dreamwork - make Dream Reconstructions possible for us to be examined as a dream. In this dream, repetitions are traced in the form of sequences of the actors’ dream reconstructions and in the expressions of montage arranged both within the plot and on the editing table. Repetitive methods like copying or mirroring attract uncertainty, disturbance, negation and meaning-extinction opening to such cognitive experiences as empathy, sympathy, understanding of general laws, identity and self-examination, self-consciousness. As a documentary the film, through establishing the authenticity of the experiment, also extends its focus on the viewer. These observations lead to the recognition that the film director’s research is simultaneously aiming to explore human psyche and the film both as a laboratory and as a data medium.
Finally, we can conclude that the indicator of his experiment’s success is its subjects’ deeper insight to their consciousness facilitated by state-communication and meaning-extinction triggered by applying montage-principles to create unconventional situations and manipulate the raw material. Our experiences are applied to a plan of an exhibition that makes interactive visitors understand how Dream Reconstructions work through a series of theoretical and hands-on dialogue with other artworks of Miklós Erdély’s.
