In Dziga Vertov’s ambition to “explore life”, the latest technical inventions arising from the industrial revolution were employed with the intention both of “discovering and revealing the truth”, and placing a revolutionary weapon in the hands of the workers. All this led him to create the Kino-eye [what the eye cannot see], Radio-Pravda [Radio-Truth] and Radio-ear [I hear]. Through radio, he attempted to establish auditory communication across the whole of the world’s proletariat by way of recording the sounds of workplaces a nd of Iife itself, captu red without preparation (a kind of ‘factory of facts’). These would subsequently be broadcast across a network of radio stations, making possible the mutual” listening” and” understanding” of all workers, regardless of their cultural origins. All these ideas were expressed in his manifesto Radio-Pravda (1925):
We defend agitation by facts, not only concerning sight, but also and in the same measure, concerning hearing. How could we establish an auditory relationship across the whole frontline of the world’s proletariat? (…) Once organised and set- up, the presentation of any sound recording may easily be broadcast in the form of Radiopravda. It is therefore possible to establish, in all the radio stations, a proportion of radio-dramas, radio-concerts and news ‘taken directly from the life of the peoples of different countries. Something that acquires fundamental importance for radio is the ‘radio-journal - free of paper and distance (Lenin) - rather than broadcasting Carmen, Rigoletto, romances, etc., with which our radio-broadcasting began. (…) Against ‘artistic cinema’, we oppose Kino-Pravda and Kino-eye; against ‘artistic broadcasting’, we oppose Radio-Pravda and Radio-Ear. (…) And it will not be through opera or theatre representations that we will prepare. We will be intensely ready to offer proletarians from all countries the possibility of seeing and hearing the whole of the world in an organised manner. Of being mutually seen, heard and understood.
Dziga Vertov was not heard in his day and was not able to put these ideas into practice, although in 1925 he did make a silent film: Radio Pravda (no. 23 in the series Kino-Pravda newsreel) of which less that a third has been preserved, showing, in a didactic way, the potential of the new medium, and his interest in using it - or perhaps in moving into it? It would be necessary to wait a few more years for his film Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony (1930) when these ideas would finally be realised - in this we see a radio tuning in to the Leningrad RV3 station to hear the sounds produced by the workers and by the mines and machinery of the industrial region of Dombass in the Eastern Ukraine. Vertov also uses sounds generated by radiophonic media itself and includes “the rhythm of a radio-telegraph” in some parts. All these sounds had been recorded on site, using a specially built mobile recording system (the “Shorin system”) and subsequently edited - by cutting, on film, since there was no other means of sound editing available (see tracks 01-10-Pt2). For the radiophonic reconstruction of Radio- Ear/Radio-Pravda, included in this recording, the sounds of the film were used and edited as a “factory of facts” to recreate the radiophonic project. Vertov’s ultimate aim was to create a “Radio-Cinema Station of Sound Production and Recording” (recording and retransmission of sound images at a distance) in order to equal and surpass the technical and economic power of capitalism.
Contributed by
Juan Pablo Macías