Dziga Vertov-Kino Auge

To create this photomontage, El Lissitzky mounted a portrait of pioneering documentary film producer Dziga Vertov within a photograph of an eye taken in 1924 by Alexander Rodchenko. The work is a witty reference to Dziga Vertov’s statement, “I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it.” Vertov believed his concept of Kino-Glaz, or Cine-Eye in English, would help contemporary man evolve from a flawed creature into a higher, more precise form. “In the face of the machine we are ashamed of man’s inability to control himself,” he wrote.