By Andy Copp

In issue #5 of Neon Madness I reviewed the 45 minute performance art documentary AFFLICTION by video artist Mark Hejnar. I gave the film 2 stars, complimenting the technique yet I found the subjects to be lacking on occasion.

For months I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie. The artists portrayed, GG ALLIN, MIKE DIANA, X MEETS Y, and some of the others all left me a bit cold. It was the images themselves that had burned into my brain. I was fairly familiar with a good portion of the material in AFFLICTION, with very little of it staying with me. Yet after a great amount of time I still found the images from this particular video swimming to the surface in my subconscious. I found myself returning the video to the slot in the VCR (more often than not to freak out friends) over and over again.

Then it finally struck me. It was not the artists or the transgressive acts they were inflicting that drew me back to this movie. It was the way the film was assembled that gave it the power. The movie is a synapse breaking montage of brutality vs. humanity that is literally impossible to absorb in one sitting. AFFLICTION demands repeat viewing to untangle the montages, juxtapositions, meanings and structures. This is not just a collection of sick images strung together at random. This is a map of the DNA of future generations. Elating, without mercy, what lies under the surface of this generation’s blank face.

With that in mind I think it is only fair of me to apologize to Mark Hejnar for my first review of AFFLICTION. It was pure and simple, a knee jerk reaction. Though some of my opinions still remain (Mike Diana really leaves me cold; hopefully the upcoming Hejnar documentary on this controversial comics artist will change my mind). I freely admit that I failed to give the movie a real chance.

Regardless it did spark me to seek out more information about Hejnar and his work. After seeing several more of his films I can say, without fear of mockery, that he is the most exciting artist working in the underground today.

The easiest label to slap on Hejnar is Media Satirist. Yet that term so inappropriate and limiting once more of his work is viewed. I see him as both a curator and anthropologist on the underground and apocalyptic culture.

His work consists of found footage re-edited and manipulated to make a comment on life in this day and age. His only contemporary in the field is Craig Baldwin (TRIBULATION 99: ALIEN ANOMOLIES UNDER AMERICA) who uses found footage to construct abstract sci-fi parables. Hejnar dispenses with the weight of narrative focus altogether, allowing his images a free flow of thought producing transcendence. The ultimate point of each of his movies is up to the audience to decide, but it certainly is not what ever the footage started life as.

His films are very much in the cut-up method of filmmaking pioneered by Brion Gyson and William Burroughs (and later to be put to use by Genesis P’Orridge and co.). Hejnar will takes pieces of literally found celluloid (sometimes found in abandoned buildings or home movies from garage sales) television, movies, music videos, news and everything else that produces a moving image or soundbyte. This is combined with footage shot himself (often shot on the Fisher Price Pixelvision camera), then manipulated to become something entirely new.

The best example of his genius in this arena is the twelve minute long TV MINISTRY (1999). The short film started life simply enough as a favor for some acquaintances. This group of folks ran a religion that worshiped Television as God and the savior of the future. This group, the TV MINISTRY, asked their friend Hejnar to direct a video piece for them to use as a propaganda tool to draw people into their church. Once he agreed Mark Hejnar become immediately annoyed with the project. The TV MINISTRY themselves were not organized in anyway and spent more time hyping the project as the "next directorial project from Award winning filmmaker Mark Hejnar".

So to both prove a point and make it more interesting for himself, Hejnar re-cut the final piece with a barrage of media images and sounds. Once finished the film was a scathing comment about TV culture and how our society laps at its cable connected teat. The TV MINISTRY themselves were thrilled with the final piece, apparently they missed the irony.

Most sane viewers will not however. There are more laughs, chills and queasy realizations in the twelve minutes of TV MINISTRY than most directors achieve in a career.

Henjnar’s magnum opus is his most difficult film to watch. BIBLE OF SKIN is an exploration of warfare, both as an element of society, biology and the family unit as well. The film is divided into Six parts, NELSON, BIBLE OF SKIN, CHRISTIAN HOLE, KILL HOUSE, DREAMS OF AMPUTATION and DAD IN SPAIN.

The first segment, NELSON, deals with images of preparation of War. The footage here consists of cut up newsreels, war manual films, and Hejnar’s own home movies. The piece sets the tone and themes of a lifetime devoted to war.

Segment two, BIBLE OF SKIN is footage containing rituals and rites of passage for many cultures. Everything from genital piercing to bullfighting sees some time in this section. The images spell out a clear connection between becoming an adult and suffering and violence.

Section three, CHRISTIAN HOLE, as a direct nod to the Viennese Aktionist work of Otto Meuhl and Gunther Brus. The piece graphically explores footage (much of it staged by Hejnar and his friends) focusing on body functions, masturbation, shitting, pissing, vomiting, fucking etc. It all climaxes after an intense and rapidly speeding up the editing pace, with a self-castration and the image burning out.

Section four is by far the most disturbing and gut wrenching of the whole film. KILL HOUSE is footage lifted from WW2 footage that shows the horrors of the holocaust up close and personal. The segment shows the most obvious and horrific repercussions of war and repression. The footage has been re-photographed to have a blue tint throughout, which is the film's saving grace from being unwatchably brutal.

Section five, DREAMS OF AMPUTATION seems almost sedate in comparison to the previous entries. It features various home movies reconstructed to emphasize the elements that boil beneath the surface of the American family. As the images find space within each other the underlying sexual tension in the family unit comes to the front. By the time the piece is through we feel like we have witnessed some terrible sexual crime, though there is no overt imagery in the segment. This is where the power of the montage and juxtaposition come into play as he takes seemingly innocent and innocuous footage and creates something wholly sinister out of it.

DAD IN SPAIN caps it all off with footage of Hejnar’s father waving goodbye at the camera from an old home movie. The image purposefully has a hard time holding, they roll, jump, speed up and slow down before finally ending altogether.

While BIBLE OF SKIN consists of all the film mentioned above, it has all been altered or re-photographed in someway. One of Hejnar’s most intriguing devices (and something I have also done in the past for effect) is to re-photograph the images while projecting them on objects or videotaping them directly off video monitor. This way he is able to reframe images, add color, texture and tones as well as concentrate on minute details. He is fond of the old school traditions of scratching film, double exposures and hand painting frames too. All of which he uses to maximum effect. None oft he footage in BIBLE OF SKIN has a resemblance to the footage from hence it originated.

Another brilliant element to his work is the music and soundtracks. This is usually performed by Mark Hejnar’s own noise band PILE OF COWS. Best described as an early era THROBBING GRISTLE but more pissed off. This shredding invasive wall of industrial noise makes the perfect accompaniment to the nightmarish images.

Ultimately BIBLE OF SKIN brings the work of experimental filmmakers like BRUCE CONNER and STAN BRAHKAGE into the 21^st century. Structurally and sometimes stylistically his films resemble the work of an era gone by, but his work is uncomprimised by public opinion and historical dissent. His films are what a good underground should be, uncomforatable. His films shock, repulse, horrify, enrage, and ultimately force the viewers to look into their own fears.

He has also directed many rock videos including the cut-up classic FINAL BLINDNESS by MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL KULT (which feels like Bible of Skin filtered through a B-movie fan). The final video consists of footage from SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, SISTERS OF SATAN and WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES among others.

As of this writing I have yet to catch up with his film about his band PILE OF COWS called HERD MENTALITY. But I hope too soon. Watch this space for an review whenever I catch up to it.

Mark Hejnar is the filmmaker of the future. A visual anthropologist who sifts through the detritus of our culture to find out who we really are. He is holding the mirror up for all the rest of us to see. Don’t look away from your reflection in his work, be brave and look into the mirror.

Links to other Hejnar info