Alexander Kluge yw un o brif leisiau deallusol Yr Almaen. Bu Kluge (ganed 14.2.1932) ar un adeg yn fyfyriwr a protégé i Theodor W. Adorno, ac mae wedi creu corff enfawr o waith, mewn gair a delwedd, gan barhau â chenhadaeth Ysgol Frankfurt. Daeth Kluge'n adnabyddus yn nechrau'r 1960au fel awdur a chyfarwyddwr ffilm. Roedd yn llefarydd a gwneuthurwr ffilmiau dylanwadol i 'Sinema Newydd Yr Almaen' yn y 1970au, ac ar sail hynny fe'i gelwid yn fuan 'y Godard Almaenig'.
Mae wedi derbyn holl wobrau pwysig Yr Almaen am lenyddiaeth, yn ogystal â gwobrau ffilm yn Fenis, Cannes a Berlin ac fe'i gwahoddwyd i arddangos ei waith yn rhai o brif amgueddfeydd y byd, yn cynnwys y Serpentine Gallery (Llundain) a MoMA (Efrog Newydd). Rydym yn ddiolchgar iawn i Kluge am gyflwyno peth o'i waith mewn ffilm a llenyddiaeth i gynulleidfa Gymreig am y tro cyntaf, yn cynnwys cyfieithiadau o'i straeon i'r Gymraeg.
Hyd yma, mae Kluge wedi cynhyrchu tua 8,000 o dudalennau o storïau a mwy na 120,000 munud o ffilm. Ar gyfer yr arddangosfa hon, mae Pontio'n dangos nifer fechan o'r hyn a elwir yn 'ffilmiau-munud', ynghyd â llyfryn yn cynnwys storïau byrion a gwybodaeth bellach ar Kluge.
Yn y casys gwydr rydym yn arddangos gwrthrychau sy'n adlewyrchu ac archwilio gwaith a thybiaethau Kluge mewn perthynas â Gogledd Cymru. Mae "Goleudai i Ddyfodiant" yn pwyso ar ddau fotif craidd yng ngwaith Kluge. Mae 'Goleudai' (“Leuchttürme” mewn Almaeneg [yn llythrennol: tyrau goleuni])yn bethau sy'n cynorthwyo pobl i ganfod y ffordd, yn arbennig ar adegau o derfysg neu helynt, a hynny mewn dyfroedd anghyfarwydd ac yn nes adref. Yr un pryd, mae goleudai hefyd yn cyfleu'r ysbryd sy'n gyffredin i fodau dynol ym mhob man: yr ysbryd o gychwyn ar daith i'r anwybod, er gwaetha'r holl beryglon. Yma, mae goleudai'n rhoi tystiolaeth o werth profiad a grynhoir mewn bywyd: caiff trallod o'r gorffennol ei sianelu'n ddiogelwch yn y dyfodol. I Kluge, mae'r goleudy felly'n drosiad dros ymreolaeth. Trwy gyfeirio'r ffordd ym mhob amgylchiad, mae'n ein galluogi i symud a gwneud penderfyniadau ynghylch ble i fynd.
Mae goleudy'n oleufa. Mae'n rhywbeth y gall pobl sydd ar goll edrych tuag ato am arweiniad. Ac mae'n adeiladwaith tal, cadarn a disymud. Ond ... beth am ei oleuni? Mae'r golau'n symud, ac mae'n dod ymlaen ac yn diffodd. Felly mae goleudy'n gweithio fel symbol o sefydlogrwydd ac o newid. Yn yr ystyr hon, mae Alexander Kluge bob amser yn awyddus i'n cyfeirio at natur ddauwynebog bywyd. Roedd goleudai, er enghraifft, yn aml yn cael eu cipio gan forladron er mwyn camarwain llongau a gwneud iddynt fynd ar greigiau neu dwyni tywod fel y gallent eu hysbeilio. Ac yn y cydamseroldeb amwys hwn y gwêl Kluge rym dilechdidol allweddol bywyd, a chwyldro. I Kluge, mae chwyldro'n greadur byw sy'n llawn syndodau. Felly, mae chwyldro'n gynhyrchydd dyfodiant: mae'n cynrychioli gweithred o gychwyn i'r anhysbys a'r newydd.
Yn nofel enwog Virginia Woolf To the lighthouse (1927) mae'r goleudy, ymysg pethau eraill, yn symbol ffalig ac, fel y cyfryw, yn symbol o fframweithiau teuluol, ac yn arbennig o awdurdod y tad yn y teulu traddodiadol. Fodd bynnag, mae'r haenau lluosog yn ei nofel - yn arbennig yn achos yr artist benywaidd, Lily Briscoe - yn rhagweld y posibilrwydd o newid a darostwng strwythurau grym patriarchaidd. Felly hefyd y gwêl Alexander Kluge bethau.
Gallwn ddychmygu morladron benywaidd, Robin Hood mewn sgert, yn cipio goleudai er mwyn camarwain llongau patriarchaeth imperialaidd ar hyd arfordiroedd Gwledydd y Gogledd a Môr Iwerddon.
Mae goleudai yn rhagweld newid. Er y gallant fod yn ddisymud, mae eu goleuni - goleuni'r Ymoleuo - yn symud. Mae eu goleuadau fflachiog yn debyg i'r taflunydd ffilm. Yn y ddau achos y goleuni - mewn cydadwaith â'r tywyllwch du sydd yr un mor bwysig - sy'n cynhyrchu'r symudiad. Yma, deuwn at graidd brwdfrydedd Alexander Kluge dros ffilm fel y ddelwedd symudol.
Ni ddylem gamsyniad, ac uniaethu Alexander Kluge ag ochr ffalig y trosiad o oleudy, ond yn hytrach gyda'r golau fflachiog ansefydlog, amwys sy'n rhoi addewid o arweiniad. Fodd bynnag, o ran y symud a phenderfynu pa lwybr i'w gymryd - mae hynny'n dal i fyny i ni. Dim ond cyfryngau rhyddhad a roddir gan Kluge, nid y rhyddhad ei hun.
Alexander Kluge - Lighthouses into Futurity
Alexander Kluge is one of the leading intellectual voices in Germany. Once, a student and protégé of Theodor W. Adorno, Kluge (born 14.2.1932) has created a vast body of work, in word and image, carrying forward the mission of the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. Kluge achieved renown in the early 1960s as both a writer and a film director. He was spokesperson and influential filmmaker of the “New German Cinema” of the 1970s, and as such he was soon aptly characterized as “the German Godard”.
He has received all of Germany’s important prizes for literature, as well as film prizes in Venice, Cannes, and Berlin, and he was invited to exhibit his work in world-leading museums, among which are the Serpentine Gallery (London), or MoMA (New York). We are very grateful for Kluge to have chosen Bangor to present some of his work in film and literature to a Welsh audience for the first time, including translations of his stories into Welsh.
To date, Kluge has produced around 8,000 pages of stories and more than 120.000 minutes of film in all. Pontio shows a small number of so called “minutes-films” on the screen and in an accompanying booklet, you can find short stories, plus further information on Kluge.
In the glass cases we display objects which mirror and explore Alexander Kluge´s work and thinking in (respect to) North Wales. “Lighthouses into Futurity” draws on two core motifs in Kluge´s work. “Lighthouses” (from German: “Leuchttürme” [literally: lighttowers]) are aids for orientation, particular in times of unrest or trouble, in unknown waters and close to home. At the same time, lighthouses manifest the spirit all humans share: the spirit to embark into the unknown, to start out into the new, and that for all risks. Here, lighthouses give evidence to the productivity of experience accumulated in life: distress of the past is channelled into future safety. For Kluge, the lighthouse is therefore a metaphor for autonomy. By securing orientation in all circumstances, it equips us with the ability for manoeuvring, that means for making decisions which direction to go.
A lighthouse is a beacon. It's something people who are lost can look towards for guidance. And it's a tall, solid, unmoving structure. But … what about its light? The light does move, furthermore, it does go on and off. So a lighthouse works as both a symbol of stability and of change. In this sense, Alexander Kluge is always keen to point us to the Janus-face of everything. Lighthouses, for instance, had often been captured by pirates in order to mislead ships into rocks or spits to then plunder them. And it is this ambiguous simultaneity that Kluge identifies as the crucial dialectical potentiality of life, and of revolution; of revolution as for Kluge, revolution is a living being full of surprises. Thus, revolution is a generator of futurity: it is the embarking into the unknown and the new.
In Virginia Woolf´s famous novel “To the lighthouse” (1927) the Lighthouse is among others a phallic symbol and as such a symbol for family structure, and especially for the authority of the father in the traditional family. However, the multiple layers in her novel – particularly in the case of the female artist, Lily Briscoe, anticipate the possibility for change and an overcoming of patriarchal power structures.
So does Alexander Kluge. We can imagines female pirates, a female Robin Hood, capturing lighthouses in order to mislead the ships of imperial Patriarchy at the coasts along the Nordic and Irish Seas.
Lighthouses do anticipate change, mobile they might be, but their light – the light of the Enlightment – moves. Flashing a light it is, similar to the film projector. In both cases it is the light – in interplay with the equally important blank darkness – which generate the movement. Here, we find ourselves in the core of Alexander Kluge´s enthusiasm for film as the moving image.
So, we should not be mistaken and identify Alexander Kluge with the phallic side of the lighthouse metaphor, but rather with the unsteady, ambiguous flashing light, that promises guidance. However, to manoeuvre and to decide which course to take – that is still up to us. Kluge only provides tools for emancipation, not the emancipation itself.