"Returning to Skopje after film school, Manchevski created a number of collaborative 1 AM events, performances and screenings, which the collective referred to as 'appearance art'. In one event in Skopje on December 10th, 1983, The Members of the Group 1 AM Will Perform a Presentation, multiple actions and screenings took place over the course of the evening. A List of Performance Elements of the Group 1 AM was read out, followed by a reading of the Conceptualist Manifesto, which consisted of its title followed by 23 signatures. In other parts of the event the audience watched an ice cube melting, and art works installed to face the wall were turned to face the audience. In Cyril and Methodius Blues, two members of the collective sang an overlapping recital of the Cyrillic alphabet. In Elements for Interpreting the Performances of the Group 1 AM, the group listed everything the performance was not; 'The performance by the group 1 AM is not: a conceptualist piece, a happening, a performance piece, body art, a structuralist piece, GASP-art, a minimalistic piece, mail art, an environmental piece, camp-art, Dadaism.' This text elaborated further, stating that, 'To evaluate an art piece on a regular basis means to fail to cognize the new, as evaluating means viewing through tradition.'"
(From Time, Narrative and Representation: Milcho Manchevski’s Photographic Work by Conor McGrady)
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"Working with the ad hoc collective 1 AM which he founded, individual or collaborative pieces drew upon Dada, structuralism and conceptualism to push the boundaries of art. Some of these works, including Beard/Polaroids were created while he was attending film school in Carbondale, Illinois, and later exhibited and performed in Macedonia and multiple venues across the former Yugoslavia. Other early works created in Carbondale include three single shot experimental films. One of these, the Untitled Film, features a black screen with a voice over, and references the desire to make an original work in film, given that all other approaches had seemingly been tried. Manchevski refers to this piece in Text of the Untitled Film, which formed part of an extensive 1 AM performance. Another of these films, The Wire, involved a tracking steady cam shot, ending in an attic with the shadow of the cameraman and the wire attached to the camera. Paths of Glory involved a single take of a slacker drinking on a porch to the soundtrack of “Act Naturally” by the Beatles. The film ends with the film stuck in the projector."
(From Time, Narrative and Representation: Milcho Manchevski’s Photographic Work by Conor McGrady)
Skopje, Macedonia, 1984
Dom na Mladi, Skopje, Macedonia, 1983
