ARNULF RAINER
/DAY 1 – THURSDAY 10 OCTOBER
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10.30 am
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Ster Century Cinema | |||
| 1 pm | Ster Century Cinema | |||
| 3.30 pm | Ster Century Cinema | |||
| 6.30 pm | Ster Century Cinema | |||
| 8.30 pm | Blank
Canvas Granary Wharf |
INSTRUMENT
R4
PASSAGE À L'ACTE
REWIND
36
15/67 TV
AUS
STRUCTURING THE IMAGE: Austrian Experimental film and video
Introduced and curated by Dietmar Schwärzler (Sixpack Film)
Venue: Ster Century Cinema
Time: 10.30 pm
Dietmar Schwärzler from Sixpack Film (www.sixpackfilm.com) , Austria’s leading short film and video distributor, will introduce a specially curated package of Austrian experimental film and video. Ranging from early experiments into the technical capabilities of editing and image manipulation using programmatic mathematical structures, through to contemporary collaborations between electronic musicians and video artists which explore complex relationships between sound and image. The programme includes pioneering work by Kurt Kren, Peter Kubelka, Peter Tscherkassky, Martin Arnold and reMI.
Download IMAGE ARCHITECTURES: Interferences between Current Video Production and Avant-garde Cinema in Austriaan essay by Dietmar Schwärzler commissioned by Lumen for Evolution 2002: PROCESS
Download*
PDF (14k) Films:
REALTIME, Siegfried A. Fruhauf (written by Robert Buchschwenter), 2002, 35mm, colour, 04:30 min
All that film is can be reduced to two elements: light and (proportionately structured) movement. And there are many possible answers to the question of what light and proportionate movement are. In REALTIME, Siegfried Fruhauf has decided on the most simple one, summing it up in the most symbolically unequivocal and, literally, most illuminating way: the sun. The light of the sun is the only type of lighting used to illuminate the movie screen in REALTIME. And the sunrise, filmed in realtime, is the only discernible motion – which makes us realize that all motion, in film and in the cosmos, is temporal. REALTIME returns the possibilities available to film to their absolute zero – and provides a clever hint at what can be reimagined proceeding from this point (and on to eternity).
ARNULF RAINER, Peter Kubelka, 1960, 35mm, b/w, 06:30 min
This is a film composed entirely of frames of solid black and solid white, which Kubelka strings together in lengths as long as 24 frames and as short as a single frame. When he alternates between single black and white frames, a rapid flicker of motion–pictures projection; during the longer sections of darkness one waits in nerveous anticipation for the flicker to return, without knowing precisely what form it will take. (Fred Camper)
R4, Michaela Schwentner, 2000, Beta SP, b/w, 07 min
Michaela Schwentner’s video to "R4" by the Viennese music trio Radian translates the abstract quality of the music into a single image, reduced but concrete: The shot which shows sets of tracks running in divergent lines from a train station and a train as it departs is transformed into a grainy black–and–white image reminiscent of Super 8 by means of various filters. This scene is compiled to form a new jerky sequence controlled by an invisible digital hand. The reptilian train creeps out of the frame slowly. This evacuation repeats what was captured in the formal reduction at the beginning.
A great deal of what characterizes the musical principle employed by Radian can also be found in Schwentner’s work method, namely the analog synthesizers she juxtaposes with an altered still image depicting the train, an analog of reality; the accentuation of the crackling high–frequency range, which corresponds to a pale, ghostly black and white in which white predominates; the gently throbbing rhythm which is expressed visually in the image of the train trundling slowly forward and seemingly not making any progress; and in the imminent disintegration of the acoustic contours into distorted white noise, which the video counters with its own visual discharge. (Christian Höller)
PASSAGE À L'ACTE, Martin Arnold, 1993, 16mm, b/w, 12min
Four people at the breakfast table, an American family, locked in the beat of the editing table. The short, pulsating sequence at the family table shows, in its original state, a classic, deceptive harmony. Arnold deconstructs this scenario of normality by destroying its original continuity. It catches on the tinny sounds and bizarre body movements of the subjects, which, in reaction, become snagged on the continuity. The message which lies deep under the surface of the family idyll, suppressed or lost, is exposed – that message is war. (Stefan Grissemann)
REWIND, [n:ja]:, 2000, Beta SP, colour, 05 min
The basis or inspiration for the video rewind was the musical work rückenwind by shabotinski [ (b)ypass:(k)ill ]. in contrast to commercial music videos, in which the visual level is integrated by means of editing, synchronization and action and it is presented as a visual component of the music, the intention in rewind was to use the music itself for a visual interpretation of the images. the ultimate goal was to create a symbiotic relationship between the audio and visual material. the structure and composition of the song rückenwind was interpreted as a continuous, linear movement. the title rückenwind and rewind emphasize the impression of constraints imposed by time and direction. acoustic interference are reproduced as visual impurities and break through the time axis in a rhythmic way predetermined by the music.in a purely technical sense, the visual interference was filtered out of the musical level by means of algorithms and transferred to the visual level through recoding. ([n:ja])
36, Lotte Schreiber, Norbert Pfaffenbichler, 2001, Beta SP, colour 02 min
36 refers to both aesthetic traditions of abstract painting and the structural approaches of early geometric films (such as those of walther ruttmann and hans richter). at the same time, other associations arise, such as early video games and their restricted movement, which was limited to the main axes. The tension and concentration of 36 caused in part by the clarity of the concept and the reduction of the means. (Gerald Weber)
UTA ZET, reMI (sound: Michael Pinter; visual: Renate Oblak), 2001, Beta SP, colour, 05min
The constant surrender to interrupted line interlacings (caused by failed calculations) and the remaining reality – codes comprising columns of figures or words apparently found coincidentally – give this symbiosis a symbolic character. The raging rhythm of the geometry of Renate Oblak’s video images and the furious fragments of sound in Michael Pinter’s music refuse to reproduce (or distort) the visible world; confronting us instead with their own intense, artificial and seemingly technoid realm. (Christian Scheib)
15/67 TV, Kurt Kren, 1967, 16mm, b/w, 04:10 min
In TV the system is different in kind and pace from that which exists in much of his other work. Instead of operating primarily at the kinetic level, or with rapid perceptual rhythm, this film involves the audience in a conceptual and reflexive process. (Malcolm Le Grice)
INSTRUMENT , Jürgen Moritz (sound: Christian Fennesz), 1997, Beta SP, colour, 05 min
Instrument is reminiscent of found–footage shot a long time ago: six seconds of innocence. He manipulated the material until only fragments of this innocence remained. To the pumping rhythm of the music the girl is simultaneously present and absent, but never really present. Moritz makes her intangible and thus creates space for ones own fantasy. (Lies Holtrop)
OUTER SPACE, Peter Tscherkassky, 1999, 35mm (Cinemascope), b&w, 10 min
From the off, from outer space, foreign bodies penetrate the images and cause the montage to become panic stricken. The outer edges of the film image, the empty perforations and the skeletons of the optical sound track rehearse an invasion. They puncture the anyway indeterminate action of the film. Cinema tearing itself apart, driven by the expectation of a final ecstasy. Glass walls explode, furniture topples over. Tscherkassky puts his heroine under pressure, drives her to extremes. Time and time again she appears to hit out against the cinematic apparatus, until the images begin to stutter, are thrown off track. Outer Space is a shocker of cinematographic dysfunction; a hell–raiser of avant–garde cinema. It conjures up an inferno which pursues the destruction (of cinematic narrative and illusion) with unimaginable beauty. (Stefan Grissemann)
AUS, Skot (sound: Christan Fennesz), 1998, Beta SP, colour, b&w, 04 min
Skot create a caleidoscope of the world of moving images out of different clips. Through irritations and super–impositions they present the manipulabiltiy and fragility of the filmmaterial. (Brigitta Burger Utzer)
Contributors:
DIETMAR SCHWÄRZLER is currently employed by Sixpack Film. He is a freelance curator and head of Projektor Forum for Discussions in Film and New Media.
SIXPACK FILM
Established in 1991, Sixpack Film is a distributor and sales agency for shorts, documentaries and experimental film and video produced in Austria.
Lillian Scwartz (2002) photo Greg Kurcewicz
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A BEAUTIFUL VIRUS INSIDE THE MACHINE: Film and Video by Lillian Schwartz
Curated and introduced by Gregory Kurcewicz
Venue: Ster Century Cinema
Date: 10th October
Time: 1 pm
Gregory Kurcewicz will present selections from the work of Lillian Schwartz (www.lillian.com) discussing her significance to the history of digital arts and her relevance to a new generation of video artists. Employed by Bell Laboratories (New Jersey) from the late 1960’s, Schwartz was instrumental in developing the use of computer technology by artists. Her work involved pioneers in programming such as Kenneth Knowlton (www.dam.org/knowlton), and the marriage of film, computers and music alongside such luminaries as Jean Claude Risset and Max Mathews.
Films:
NEWTONIAN I, 1978, 4 mins, 16mm, colour
NEWTONIAN II, 1978, 5 mins 30 secs, 16mm, colour
MUTATIONS, 1974, 7 mins 30 secs, 16mm, colour
PIXILLATION, 1970, 4 mins, 16mm, colour
GOOGLEPLEX, 1972, 5 mins 30 secs, 16mm, colour & b/w
RITUEL, 1979, 30 mins, 16mm, colour
UFO’S, 1971, 3 mins, 16mm, colour
METAMORPHOSIS, 1974, 8 mins 15 secs, 16mm, colour & b/w
PICTURES FROM A GALLERY, 1976, 7 mins, 16mm, colour
THE ARTIST AND THE COMPUTER, 1976, 10 mins, 16mm, colour
L’OISEAU, 1977, 4 mins, 16mm, colour
ALAE, 1975, 5 mins, 16mm, colour
APOTHEOSIS, 1973, 4 mins 30 secs, 16mm, colour
PAPILLIONS, 1974, 4 mins, 16mm, colour
INNOCENCE, 1973, 2 mins 30 secs, 16mm, colour
ENIGMA, 1972, 4 mins 20 secs, 16mm, colour & b/w
Contributors:
GREGORY KURCEWICZ is an independent curator of experimental film
and video focusing on issues such as abstraction, computers, systems and
other formal concerns. He has curated work for the Institute of Contemporary
Arts (ICA, London), the Regus London International Film festival, the
Lux Centre (London) and most recently was the co–curator of Shoot!
Shoot! Shoot! (www.lfmc.org),
a major, internationally touring, exhibition of film highlighting the
work of the London Filmmaker’s Co–operative 1966–76.
AUDIO VISUALITY: The Space Between Sound and Vision
Venue: Ster Century Cinema
Time: 3.30 pm
Contemporary video artists and electronic musicians including Kristín Björk Kristjánsdóttir (Kitchen Motors, Iceland), Kim Cascone (US) and Tom Betts (UK) will come together in this exciting seminar to examine the inter–relationship and complex synchronicity between sound/music and video/film and explore the past, present and future of audio–visual culture. They will discuss the history of experimentation from John Cage to Max/MSP and nato.0+55 (www.cycling74.com), the impact new technologies have had on their work, and the recent emergence of a new form of live peformance. All speakers at this event will also perform their work live as part of the Synch Sound event in the evening.
Contributors:
KIM CASCONE (www.anechoicmedia.com) has a long history involving electronic music: he has studied electronic music at the Berkley College of Music and the New School in New York City. Cascone has worked for Thomas Dolby’s company, Headspace, David Lynch and Staccato Systems where he oversaw the design of new sounds for games using algorithmic synthesis. He is the founder of Silent Records, has released more than 15 albums of electronic music and has performed and worked with Keith Rowe, Peter Rehberg, Oval, Scanner, Carsten Nicolai, Doug Aitken, and David Toop among others.
TOM BETTS (www.nullpointer.co.uk) is a Leeds based net artist and electronic musician. He has exhibited his digital art works at the Lux Centre (London), the South Back Centre (London) and Sonar (Barcelona) and is published as a musician by EMI. Tom has been recently commissioned by The Media Centre Huddersfield’s DRU (Digital Research Unit) to develop QQQ, an interactive and networked artwork produced by hacking the code of the graphics engine of the computer game Quake.
KRISTÍN BJÖRK is: Kira Kira when she messes with noises by herself, and a member of Spúnk. Used to play with Big Band Brútal and minimum brútal and is one of 3 founding members of Kitchen Motors.
KITCHEN MOTORS (www.kitchenmotors.com) is a record label, a think tank, and an art organization specializing in instigating collaborations and putting on concerts, exhibitions, performances, chamber operas, producing films, books and radio shows based on the ideals of experimentation, collaboration, the search for new art forms and the breaking down of barriers between forms, genres and disciplines. The main area of interest is in music, with special emphasis on the electronic and improvised kind.
'Reykjavik's Kitchen Motors...ought to be the envy of New York, London and San Francisco' (The Wire Magazine)
FEATURE FILM
by Douglas Gordon, 1998, 35mm
Venue: Ster Century Cinema
Time: 6.30 pm
Supported by Artangel (www.artangel.org.uk)
Feature Film is a film of a conductor leading an orchestra through Bernard Herrmann’s eerie score to Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo. Music always underscored Hitchcock's vision – most notably through his collaboration with one of the greatest of all film composers, Bernard Herrmann. Imagine the shower scene in Psycho, the chase in North by Northwest or the love scenes in Vertigo – and you hear Herrmann's music as you recall Hitchcock's film. Like Hitchcock, Herrmann was an aficionado of romantic obsession and a master of suspense. In Feature Film, Douglas Gordon has arranged a divorce – between sound and vision – and orchestrated an affair – between what you remember and what you see. Made in collaboration with the acclaimed conductor James Conlon, (principal conductor of the Paris Opera and the Cologne Philharmonic), Feature Film is a portrait and a landscape, a soundtrack and a motion picture. . An introduction by David Cooper, Head of Music at the University of Leeds, will explore Herrmann’s musical score and his collaboration with Hitchcock.
Contributors:
DAVID COOPER (www.leeds.ac.uk/music/staff/dgc) is Professor of Music and Technology, and Head of the School of Music at the University of Leeds. He is author of Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo: A Film Score Handbook (Greenwood Press, 2002).
POWERBOOKS FOR PEACE
VENDOR REFILL
SYNCH SOUND: Live Experimental Sound and Vision
Venue: Blank Canvas, Granary
Wharf
Time: 8.30 pm
There exists a hybrid of collaboration between
video artists, phonic artists and electronic musicians. The digital signal
has enabled mediums to be more easily inter–connected, controlled,
triggered and synchronised. Featuring performances from Richard Chartier
(US), Kira Kira & Sigga Björg (Kitchen Motors, Iceland), Kim
Cascone (US), Powerbooks for Peace and Vendor Refill (both UK), this unusual
event will bring together some of the most unique and exciting artists
working with video and audio from around the world.
RICHARD CHARTIER (www.12k.com)
(b.1971), minimal sound artist/composer and graphic designer, has produced
critically acclaimed recordings for labels including Trente Oiseaux (Germany),
LINE (USA), Meme (Japan), and Fallt (Ireland), as well collaborative works
with Nosei Sakata (*0),Taylor Deupree, and Kim Cascone on 12k (USA). For
his cd Series, Chartier was awarded one of twelve Honorable Mentions in
the category of Digital Music by the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica,
2001 (Linz, Austria). This work was also selected for the Whitney Biennial
2002 exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY).
Both his visual and sound works have been
exhibited in many galleries and artspaces including the Art Institute
of Chicago, Fusebox (DC), the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Washington Project
for the Arts Projectspace in Washington, DC. Over the past several years,
he has been invited to perform his work at music and digital culture events/programs
in the United States, Canada, and Europe including such noted international
electronic music festivals as MUTEK (Montreal), Lovebytes (Sheffield)
and Transmissions (Chicago) and in conjunction with the sound art exhibit
"Frequencies [Hz]" at the Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt).
POWERBOOKS FOR PEACE (www.pwrbks4peace.org)
is Alex Peverett, James Brouwer and Joe Gilmore.
“I think we had a kind of communication
working among us, a very magical communication. When you live the picture,
when you are not acting, there is no dichotomy...no alienation. What you
are doing is real. Because I think that if you want a picture to change
the world, you must first change the actors in the picture. And before
doing that, you must change yourself. Right? This must be done. With every
new picture, I must change myself, I must kill myself, and I must be born.
I must kill the actors and they must be born. And then the audiences,
the audiences who go to the movies, must be assassinated, killed, destroyed,
and they must leave the theatre as new people. That is a good picture....When
I direct a film, everybody - myself included - falls into such trances
that there is dead silence, because our lives are at stake.” (Alexandro
Jodorowsky)
PowerBooks for Peace will perform 'Ceremony of Death' at Evolution 2002.
Forthcoming cd releases on Alku [Spain] and Alienation [Japan].
Think Different.
VENDOR REFILL (www.nullpointer.co.uk)