<nettime-ann> SLIDE MOVIE - new installation by Gebhard Sengmueller at EMAF Osnabrueck, April 25th - May 20th 2007

[Gebhard Sengmüller <gebseng@vinylvideo.com>]

.
SLIDE MOVIE - DIAFILMPROJEKTOR

a new installation by Gebhard Sengmueller

will be presented at the European Media Art Festival Osnabrueck,  
April 25th - May 20th 2007

Black cube installation: A film sequence (35mm motion picture, 24  
frames/sec.) is cut up and the individual frames are mounted as  
slides. They’re then distributed among 24 slide projectors that are  
all focused on the same screen (the exact same point). Via electronic  
control of the projectors, these individual images are then  
reassembled-in an extremely cumbersome way-into a chronological  
sequence. The formula “one projector per frame” thus gives rise to  
something that at least rudimentarily (and inevitably very  
inaccurately, due to the lack of precision of the mechanical devices)  
suggests a motion picture. The film soundtrack emerges as a byproduct  
- the mechanical clattering of the projectors changing slides.

[...] Slide Movie, the most recent of Sengmueller's apparatuses, is  
located not only in the field of media archeology, though, but also  
in the field of media theory.  With the infernal noise produced by  
twenty-four slide projectors changing pictures, the "film projector"  
is liberated from the sound-proof projection room and opened up.   
With the inside out, we find ourselves no longer in the audience  
space, but in the middle of the projector.  The film, whose content  
is conventionally the focal point, moves into the background.  What  
becomes visible, as though under a magnifying glass, is the medium,  
the illusion, the way still images are turned into moving pictures.   
In the terms of cognitive psychology, from which Heideggerian  
phenomenology also draws, this can be understood as a displacement of  
"figure" and "ground".  The figure is that, to which attention is  
directed; the ground is everything that first makes the figure  
possible, but which is omitted by perception, so that we can  
concentrate on the figure. The ground of the figure "film" is the  
cinema, the box office cashier selling tickets, the darkened  
projection room, the muted projector, the electrical currents that  
provide the projector with energy, and so forth.  All of this must be  
present, in order for us to see the film.  At the same time, however,  
we must also fade it out, so that we can concentrate on the content  
of the film, the "figure".  Although - or perhaps specifically  
because - they are faded out, all these things have a much more  
lasting influence on our culture than any single film, which often  
disappears again after a few weeks, only to be replaced by the next  
film. [...] (Felix Stalder)

Gebhard Sengmueller is an artist working in the field of media  
technology, currently based in Vienna, Austria. Since 1992, he has  
been developing projects and installations focussing on the history  
of electronic media, creating alternative ordering systems for media  
content and constructing autogenerative networks. His work has been  
shown extensively in Europe and the US, among others at Ars  
Electronica Linz, the Venice Biennale, ICA London, Postmasters  
Gallery NYC. His main project for the last few years has been  
VinylVideo™, a fake piece of media archeology.

http://www.gebseng.com/04_slidemovie/
http://www.emaf.de


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