PJ: Rich in metaphors, the dense prose of Bruno Schulz is indeed fertile ground for interdisciplinary activities with combine word, sound and image. How was it for you to work with this piece? What inspired you, and what seemed like an obstacle?
MJ: The inspiration for this project came directly from Schulz’s texts. As a great mythmaker, he constructs whole worlds out of language, many of which give rise to sounds and images and other sensory data. But the challenge of adapting Schulz is that his stories are extremely dream-like and filled with moments of pure fluidity, where time, space, and identity collapse. I believe this is why there are only two great Schulz adaptations in cinema: The Hourglass Sanatorium by Wojciech Has and The Street of Crocodiles by the Brothers Quay.
Our solution was to use sound as our main vehicle, as it can handle large abstract ideas. In the end, what you hear are Schulz’s texts being read, but within sonic landscapes that promote meditation, contemplation, and ultimately sleep. To achieve these effects, Eli Stine, one of our sound designers, used scientifically proven sonic sleep aids such as binaural beats and drones which lead the listener into a more restful state. There you go deeper and deeper into a dream-like space, all the while listening to literature. Our other sound designer, Jackson Bierfeldt, worked with sound effects, text, and music by composer Wacław Zimpel to create a 'cinema for the ear'. Combined, these works allow us to open up Schulz’s texts in a new way. To my knowledge, no one has previously adapted literature in this way.
WZ: In my intention, the music I create is supposed to transport listeners into the non-material world, somewhere between sleep and reality. Schulz's prose does that to me, it takes me to a different reality in which the music composes itself.
MJ: The use of images in this project was equally important, especially the interactive, illustrated map by Marta Lissowska which creates a mythic frame around the Republic. Now online and interactive, thanks to Dávid Lipkovič and Eli Stine, Lissowska’s map embeds Schulz’s personal narrative within a visual style that is reminiscent of the large, hand-produced maps of mediaeval Europe, where whole cosmologies were symbolised within recognizable localized rural and urban geographical features. Only in this case, the landscape is Schultz himself, which includes the mythic geography of Drohobycz and references to many of his short stories.
ML: Finding the right visual language was a challenge. I didn’t want to, in any way, try and imitate Schulz’s drawings, I didn’t want to ‘forge’ his Book of Idolatry. On the other hand, the image of the world created by Schulz is so expressive and distinctive, that it was important to me that my illustrations don’t come into contrast with his. That’s probably why it took me the entire first month to think about and play with different artistic techniques. At the same time, Schulz’s graphics and drawings were a goldmine of motifs – on par with his stories. As our entire project relates to the land of dreams, various elements could be combined in a non-linear way, based on loose associations. The Republic of Dreams is by definition egalitarian, and in addition to direct or indirect inspirations from Schulz's work, there are also a few elements completely outside of it.
PJ: From Schulz’s artistic oeuvre, we know of only one oil painting that survived the war. That’s why we mainly associate Schulz with a black-and-white palette. You also used black and white for this project, so the question arises: is it difficult, working with another artists’ works, to free yourself from under the yoke of his powerful vision? And is it even necessary?
ML: To me, black-and-white really seems to correspond better with the world created by Schulz. I once read that many people's dreams are in black-and -white. When I try to think about my dreams after waking up, I don't remember any colours, not even black-and-white. There are only meanings, the content of things, not their colours.
In any case, having to deal with the image of the world created by Schulz was intimidating for me at first, and it certainly wouldn’t be the case if he was only a writer. But the situation in which someone creates their work inspired by the work of another artist is and has always been common – so maybe you don't really have to free yourself from this pressure, but rather see where it can lead us.