ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/309267512
The whole film: https://kinoscope.org/v/its-existence-commenced-this-hour/
Distribution:
Light Cone, Paris / France
https://lightcone.org/en/film-12223-its-existence-commenced-this-hour
Film: Wolfgang Lehmann
Music: Goh Lee Kwang
Original material: actor / performer: Letizia Mauldin, The Anonymous, Amparo Tamayan & Shichiro Ozu
&
Found footage
60 minutes
colour
Aspect ratio: 16: 9
DCP (Digital Cinema Package or digital file)
Sweden / Malaysia 2019 (revised version 2020)
World premiere: 13. July 2019 - Festival ECRÃ, Cinemateca do Museu de Arte Moderna (NAM) do Rio de Janeiro / Brazil
Review in Spanish by Mónica Delgado, desistfilm 25.09.2020.
On the occasion of a festival screening in Lima, Peru.
„Its Existence Commenced This Hour (Wolfgang Lehmann, 2019) - Behind the liquid curtain of multicolored abstractions, the nature sinks into a trembling dream and becomes one with it. Strengthened by haunting, borderline alien soundscapes, their unity rips the fabric of reality... I only wish it were possible to touch the incessantly mutating images.“ NGboo Art, 09/2020
ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR works with a constantly changing flow of images (processed found footage and original material), visual-thought-fragments, bodies, memories, desires, and hallucinations. The film is a study in contemplation. What is not to understand that he is meditative quiet.
The film plays with streams of images that do not undergo any narrative development and is backed by a minimalistic music with a metallic bell-like sound.
It is a state of perception that the film wants to trigger and perception is always subject to subjective experience. Which means that every viewer will probably have his own interpretation.
The audience has to let himself into the film and slide away by the sounds and imagery metamorphoses, and is invited to develop his own thoughts.
ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR is filmic poetry, the film runs exactly one hour – the film needs this space and this time in order to give the perception the space to forget the perceived time and to get in a continuum, in which one can drift.
In this respect, the film requires much of its observers to let go of the idea of the conventional narrative presentation that creates the dramaturgy with the help of excitement. ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR is inspired by minimal music, drone music and non-European music dramaturgy like gamelan and raga.
The film's title is a quote from a book by the English botanist, naturalist and religious writer Philip Henry Gosse (1810 - 1888).
Statement:
To me, film is first and foremost a visual event over time, with a beginning and an end. Film is simply a composition of moving images. Film is not necessarily narrative. Film is image in time! Telling a story is possible but not essential.
I'm interested in films that challenge the audience, demanding patience and openness. That gives the audience more than just the manipulation of time in terms of amusement and a way of spending time.
Film and all art forms must also be utopian. No sale-machines for lifestyles.
My films also want to be an aesthetic pleasure for the viewer; don’t have to please everyone – the films are created for those who find an access to them.
People are individuals and that means we need individual films.
My films represent one possible form of expressions, film is a multifaceted art form and the more different films there are, the more democratic is the form of expressions. I'm interested in films that are magical and mysterious. W. Lehmann
Por Mónica Delgado, desistfilm 25.09.2020
Its existence commenced this hour (Suecia, Malasia, 2017-2019) de Lehmann, dura una hora y está acompañada de la música del malayo Goh Lee Kwang, que define el ritmo y media la intensidad del montaje. Es de ese tipo de films que hace extrañar definitivamente una sala de cine. Es un trabajo que requiere de la complicidad de la oscuridad, ya que el artista y cineasta plantea estos sutiles cambios producto de la fusión de planos, de las diversas sobreimpresiones que transforman la realidad en una descomunal flora que va cambiando pero que conserva aún su naturaleza primigenia. Esta nueva naturaleza es la que Lehman construye a lo largo de esta hora
La música que Lee Kwang modula para esta trabajo, tiene ecos de ritmos indios e indonesos, que dotan al largometraje de una filiación orientalista. Este pulso que brinda la música aporta a esta resolución del mundo que propone el film y que tiene dos persistencias: una, vertical, que evoca caídas de agua, como flujos que caen, y otra, horizontal, que se refleja en la adivinación de paisajes, que parecen haber sido captados desde paneos o travellings, a modo de viajes. Esta dialéctica es en varios momentos yuxtapuesta, o genera una percepción centrífuga, caleidoscópica o de expansión. Hay una convivencia de estos movimientos que quiere ser armónica, que hace comulgar estos modos lúdicos y diversos de percibir este entorno de pixels y distorsión.
Como en su Traces of garden (2016), que se pudo ver en Lima en el marco del Lima Independiente, Lehmann explora espacios de la naturaleza, donde las flores y vegetaciones tienen un rol primordial, al ser entes de color y de luz, y lo hace a través de un metraje que requiere contemplación. Por ellos, sus trabajos suelen ser largometrajes. ¿Podría Lehmann exponer estas premisas y conceptos desde el corto? Probablemente sí, pero Lehmann es una cineasta que propone esta urgencia de la observación, de la entrega del espectador a este método donde el tiempo se tiene que percibir y ser parte de una experiencia sensorial. Por ello, los 60 minutos de Its existence commenced this hour (evidente eco en el título de la formulación del concepto que gobierna el film), requiere esta duración para consolidar la experiencia de percepción como acto total y religioso.
English translation - Attention this is not a professional translation but one quickly made by a friend. We apologize for linguistic errors and the like.:
Its existence commenced this hour (Sweden, Malaysia, 2017-2019) by Lehmann, which lasts one hour and is accompanied by the music of the Malaysian Goh Lee Kwang, which defines the rhythm and half the intensity of the montage. It is the kind of film that makes a movie theater definitely miss. It is a work that requires the complicity of darkness, since the artist and filmmaker raise these subtle changes as a result of the fusion of planes, of the various overlays that transform reality into a huge flora that changes but still preserves its nature. primal. This new nature is what Lehman builds throughout this hour
The music that Lee Kwang modulates for this work has echoes of Indian and Indonesian rhythms, which endow the film with an orientalist affiliation. This pulse that the music provides contributes to this resolution of the world that the film proposes and that has two persistence: one, vertical, which evokes falls of water, like falling flows, and another, horizontal, which is reflected in the divination of landscapes, which seem to have been captured from panning or traveling, by way of travel. This dialectic is at various times juxtaposed or generates a centrifugal, kaleidoscopic, or expansion perception. There is a coexistence of these movements that want to be harmonious, which makes these playful and diverse ways of perceiving this environment of pixels and distortion commune.
As in his Traces of garden (2016), which could be seen in Lima in the framework of the Independent Lima, Lehmann explores spaces of nature, where flowers and vegetation have a primary role, being entities of color and light, and he does it through the footage that requires contemplation. Because of them, their works are usually featured films. Could Lehmann present these premises and concepts from the short? Probably yes, but Lehmann is a filmmaker who proposes this urgency of observation, of the viewer's surrender to this method where time has to be perceived and be part of sensory experience. Therefore, the 60 minutes of Its existence commenced this hour (evident echo in the title of the formulation of the concept that governs the film), requires this duration to consolidate the experience of perception as a total and religious act.
KOLKATA, LECTURE (2023)
Master class November 23rd & 24th, 2023 at the EMAMI ART EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL 2023, Kolkata, India.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PICTURE
On the one hand about my film work in general and in particular about my films:
DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE (2012)
TRACES OF GARDEN (2016)
and
ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR (2019/20)
By Wolfgang Lehmann, November 2023
Translated from German into English by Leela Chinoy
Let us begin with a few thoughts – let’s call them fragmented thoughts.
Fragmented Thoughts 1
The idea and the dream of moving pictures is probably as old as the cultural history of mankind. And this is basically very logical, as, all said and done, the world around us is in constant motion.
Possibly the most well known and also the first proof of images in motion is that of the Greek philosopher Plato (* 428/427 BC to 348/347 BC) in his “Allegory of the cave” from his book “The Republic”
In my opinion, what is interested in Plato is that he already sees the picture in motion as an illusion which possibly represents a fragment of reality, but which can never mirror the total truth
The “Allegory of the cave” is a philosophical metaphor of Plato’s, where man is sitting in a cave around a campfire, and regards the shadows on the walls of the cave to be the reality.
A picture, a reflection, is confused with the actual reality.
So exactly the opposite of the well-known quotation “Film is the truth in 24 images per second”, as claimed by the protagonist of a film by Jean-Luc Godard.
The quotation is from Godard’s film “The Little Soldier” from 1963 and the exact quotation is "the photography, that is the truth. And the film, that is the truth 24 times per second".
On the subject of Film and Illusion, I saw a Spanish Film many years ago from the 1920s, which thematized the topic of Truth and Illusion very well. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the film. The plot deals with documentary material being recorded by a film camera, actual events which have been wrongly interpreted by the viewers, because in the film, only the clipping of the moment in time is visible and nothing is known about the events that transpired before or after this, or even outside the recording.
So actually, only a fragment of the truth has been reflected.
The linking of the circumstances through the false interpretation of the filmed material is basically a story of jealousy, as the recording of the film indicates that there is a love story, which actually never existed. So actually, an impact which happened for other reasons, but in the picture, it appeared to be an intimate love story.
This Spanish film from the 1920s demonstrates best that the truth and interpretation of a film do not always go together. So, truth in 24 pictures per second did not actually happen, though the portrayal in the film definitely shows that this was not fabricated. The problem of picture and reality in our times has become even more meaningful through the very simple digital distortion of pictures or through pictures which have been generated through artistic intelligence and have little to do with the documented picture.
The boundaries between the truth in a film and fabrication intermingle with each other.
But as we have already seen in the Spanish film, the problem of truth, interpretation and illusion was a given.
In this respect, Plato was right about his allegory of the cave.
Images, can, at best, reflect the fragments of reality but never the whole truth.
To this extent, I have never been interested in the question of truth in connection with pictures.
The pictures are products of our design. Films are a combination of pictures, totally subjective to the film-maker’s choice. We can present ideas through films and even have political and philosophical discussions. But the film can never be a 100% representation of reality.
Let us look at films as bearers of thoughts and ideas, philosophies, fantasies or even wishful thinking.
Film and video are absolutely simple products of human creativity.
Besides, the truth is a difficult concept. A work of art can at best be only a fragment of reality. It can never reproduce all the facets and angles which are required to reflect the complete reality (which even we probably are not aware of), but just a part of it.
Moreover, each work of art is also subjective!
How can it be anything else when even our own scientific view of the world is shaped by subjectivity? So, our artistic productions are even more so.
My first 16mm film “STUDY OF SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT” from 1994, is based on a quotation by Erwin Schrödinger.
Schrödinger lived from 1887 to 1961 and in 1933, he received the Nobel Prize for physics along with Paul Dirac.
The quotation of Schrödinger is as follows: “The reason that our sentient discerning and thinking self never appears in our scientific worldview can be expressed in five words:
It is this worldview itself
It is identical to the WHOLE and can therefore never be there in part.” (From his book GEIST UND MATERIE, Diogenes, Zürich 1993).
Schrödinger’s "Truth-skepticism" shaped me from a very early age, with which Schrödinger does not use the natural sciences or research per se, but only wanted to question its claim. To absolute truth. And if there's no absolute truth, in the natural sciences according to Schrödinger, how can it then be such in art?
Fragment of Thought 2
Film and art history are naturally fascinating, and every artiste somehow always stays in touch with the past.
We are inspired, we have ideas, and we conduct ourselves in a manner in relation to what we see and what has already been created by others.
That does not mean that every artiste must necessarily be an expert in the history of his field (as a rule, artistes are not film or art historians, nor do they want to be such), but it is unlikely that there will be any artist who does not know works that are compatible with and related to his own work, although one may on the one hand be very conscious of this, and sometimes it is the very opposite.
Man is influenced without actually being aware of it. And this, obviously, applies to me as well.
Fragment of Thought 3
And naturally, no art is possible without technique and material. When we make films, that is the sequence of images which create an illusion of movement (because this is ultimately film) we have to move within the limits which are controlled by the technique irrespective of the wealth of ideas.
There are, of course, filmmakers and video makers who are themselves inventors, and who develop new techniques, but most of them, even I, move within an already established framework.
In other words, in the technical possibilities of their present
Indeed, those of us who are not inventors use the technique in a completely unorthodox manner, that is, we use it in a manner in which it was not originally conceived.
Or we discover possibilities which even the inventor had not envisaged. And lastly, and of great importance, in the History of the Experimental Film we use the techniques incorrectly, thereby creating our own possibility of visual composition.
A typical example of this is the work with glitch in the video. A true glitch is a short-lived glitch in a computer or electronic system. In video-art, the glitch would be evoked as a visual medium.
In other words, the glitch is caused by a malfunction in the system, but this disturbance can also be intentionally evoked and at the same time controlled, and new images created with it.
A much more analogous example of the application of technology in a sense that the inventor did not think of and also didn't want, is that of the “Pumping Screen” technique of the experimental filmmaker Dietmar Brehm (born 1947 in Linz, Austria). His "Pumping Screen" technique creates in the projection of his films a hypnotic, slightly flickering, pumping image. This technique, which is so typical of his films, was initially developed due to a technical error in his 16 mm camera, where the footage was not transported properly. When Brehm recognized the aesthetic possibilities of the mistake, he manipulated the transport mechanism in his cameras to get this pumping effect and developed it in the course of time for his films and later video works.
This as an example of how technique, random errors can be related to creative handling. In the case of Dietmar Brehm, an initially unintentional error is the aesthetic hallmark of his cinematic works.
Now let’s turn to my films:
How did it all start?
In the beginning was my love for film and cinema. I was simply a film lover, with a particular interest in classic narrative cinema. When I was in my early 20s, I started working in a cinema, selecting programs and organizing film series. This was the municipal cinema in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. At the same time, I started writing film reviews and articles for film magazines.
Then something happened, thanks to Willi Karow (1936-2021), I discovered experimental cinema. At that time, he was the managing director of the cinema in Freiburg and a connoisseur of experimental films. Through the programs he presented, my real journey into the art of film began. And my personal discovery that film can also be poetry and a "painting in time" began by seeing film programs with films by Kurt Kren (1929-1998), Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) and Caroleen Schneeman (1939-2019).
Above all, the films of Kurt Kren and Caroleen Schneeman inspired me to want to make my own films. And then, for me, came the discovery of the films of Germaine Dulac, whose films of the 1920s and 1930s are still the epitome of cinematic poetry for me. And here we are with the films that really mean a lot to me and which are also an inspiration for my works.
Basically, my work so far can be divided into two Groups.
The first group are the works with 16 mm film, with DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE from 2012 as the finale. The second is the video works thereafter.
While with the 16 mm films, I didn‘t have to do any material transformation in the sense of image creation outside the camera, this is important first in the case of the video works.
In the case of the video works, I tried to find methods that would work for me, allow the image to be altered in the sense of the material film. However, you can't bury digital files or cook them in a boiling pot as you can do with footage. So I had to develop other methods.
But first, let's talk about the 16 mm films. Here I was mainly interested in the editing, in the combination of the images that are not in the material, but only created in the viewer's head by the sequence of images (through film editing) and its tempo.
In the case of DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE, I was also interested in the time of perception, a thought that then is also the focus of my video works. More about that later.
Back to the cut. When films work with very shortcuts, this creates an overlap in the eye of the beholder. One sometimes refers to this as the flicker effect.
The term "flicker" is used in different ways, from very puristic to some, but personally, in my senses it is more open-minded and stands for any form of shortcut.
The disadvantage of shortcuts is, of course, that they are very "physical" (this is a disadvantage, which of course is also an advantage) and always depends on the viewer).
The disadvantage is that some people cannot view such cuts because it causes them to feel unwell and dizzy.
For others, the opposite may be the case and the cuts are more likely to result in
ecstasy and well-being.
A fast cut triggers a vibration, a frequency that leads to different physical reactions. If you start to feel bad, then unfortunately one can only advise you to close your eyes
or leave the cinema. If you feel good, you can let yourself be completely "immersed" in the film.
My first extensive work with shortcuts was my film FONTAINE DE VAUCLUSE (2001), which I made along with Florian Krautkrämer (1977). The movie is 62 minutes long and apart from the prologue and a short scene in the middle, the movie is made completely with single frames.
This means that the mechanical 16 mm Bolex camera has been used as in the case when an animated film is produced, one frame after another.
Except that it's not about an animated film, but a documentary that was filmed by us in a small town in the south of France.
The great German pioneer of abstract film, Oscar Fischinger (1900-1967), had already made attempts in the 1920s with materials shooting with single frame for a documentary project. His film only lasts a few minutes and was never completed.
Such a project requires patience and a certain obsession. Fontaine de Vaucluse consists of approximately 270,000 individual recorded film images.
Back to DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE
In addition to the shortcut, I was also interested in the fact that short film cuts create a rhythm in the head, and thereby the perception of music or sounds. Which is why it appealed to me very much, to make DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE as a silent film.
So the film doesn't have any music or soundtrack, yet it happened again and again at performances that sections of the audience claimed that this is not true. That the film would have a sound. Quite simply, because through the cutting frequency, they began to create and listen to their own "inner" music.
I find something like that exciting and it's very interesting.
Shortcuts (flicker sequences) are absolutely not my invention, they have been occurring from time to time since the 1920s. But for me the initial spark came when I saw the films of Kurt Kren, which, however, are always very short (much less than 10 minutes)
Notorious are his material films, which are based on the actions of Otto Mühl (1925-2013).
His film 6/64 MAMA UND PAPA is very important to me, since without this, I probably would never have started with my 16 mm films. It's a masterpiece, but at the same time it's also disturbing for many.
The film is very sexual and provokes through the film montage, and also through the pictures. The film is silent. Films without sound are typical of the works by Stan Brakhage, and he is often associated with it, but also other artists, such as Kurt Kren, have repeatedly refrained from using a soundtrack, but not as consistently as Brakhage.
Kren also made movies that are slower, not all of his movies work with flicker cuts, but it was these short-cut films which made me familiar with the power of such montage. For me, these are paintings that are created at the moment of seeing. Pure film poems of perception.
Otto Mühl himself was not so impressed by the film at the beginning, he
would rather have a conventional documentation of his performance.
This film by Kurt Kren was one of the starting points for DRAGONFLIES WITH
BIRDS AND SNAKE and a few short films I made before that.
The other starting point was MARSA ABU GALAWA (CARELESS
REEF PART 4) by Gerard Holthuis (1952) from 2004.
However, Holthuis uses music, which is perfectly fine, his decision, but I find it unnecessary, even disturbing, for his film.
Kren and Holthui's films I found and still find stunning, But I always wondered what would happen to the viewer if the films don't just last a short time, well, Holthui's film is at least just under 13 minutes, Kurt Krens only 4 minutes, but I wanted a film, where you lose all sense of time, you don't know anymore whether he walked for 20 minutes or already 40 minutes, first of all I asked how one would feel if such a flicker film lasted an hour.
Since I couldn't find such a film, there was nothing else to do but to make it myself. This is how DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE was born.
Why no one had made such a long film was explained quickly while working on it. It's not just a matter of which images are used, when and in what combination, but it is also a long compositional process. In this way, colors, structures and also the perception take shape.
I started assembling it in 2007, and it took me until 2011.
The film premiered at the International Film Festival Berlin (Forum Expanded) in 2012.
Four years of work was probably the answer to why films made in shortcuts, as a rule, are short films. It's an incredible time-consuming work to achieve such an assembly.
DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE consists of approximately 86,000 images, with a montage of three to four images, this results in about 24,600 cuts. And as I said, it's not just about the cuts but also choosing what, where, and how it should all come together.
I personally find it very exciting to compare the films of Kurt Kren and Gerard Holthuis with my film. In principle, they use the same technique, but structure, rhythm, the length and selection of images are completely different and therefore each of these films generates its own perception and associations.
After the completion of DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE, it was time for me to start something new. I switched from 16mm film to video.
But I didn't want to imitate my 16mm films with video, so here the interest in material film returned. And I tried finding digital solutions to enable digital material processing to get there.
To my films TRACES OF GARDEN (2016) & ITS EXISTENCE
COMMENCED THIS HOUR (2019)
These two films are video works and therefore not on the physical footage.
Both films use original footage and Found Footage, as was also the case with my film DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE (2012).
My video works are definitely to be seen in the tradition of material film, which was shot on analogue film material. In the case of my videos, the idea of the “moving image” is in the center. When I use the wonderful expression “moving image” I mean it literally in relation to my work. “Moving image” means a painting that is located in the time, which is never the same, but always in a state of metamorphosis. That's why the films often work not with hard cuts, but with soft cuts that are created by overlays.
In both films, the source material is barely recognizable. There are actors in both films. In TRACES OF GARDEN is a love couple who can still be clearly seen, while in ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR the actors can hardly be seen. They are, so to speak, just perceptible, but often already hidden in the image metamorphoses that were created through superimpositions.
TRACES OF GARDEN was my second work made on digital material. The first was a stage video for a chamber opera production in 2014.
When I was trying to develop my video footage aesthetic, I proceeded more with manual steps and little with Computer Programs.
To be honest, both movies are only made with an old iMovie editing program as far as digital technology is concerned.
The American artist Sadie Benning (1973) produced a series of video works, which she made with a cheap children's toy camera, so she could also develop a special aesthetic for them. I wanted to do something similar by dealing with cheap digital technologies and, on the other hand, techniques that are more derived from the footage. They can be time-consuming, I'm never really in a hurry, but it shouldn't be the digital effect programs that are used by most and which can be purchased on the Internet.
My video films were created more by filming, superimposing and suchlike.
The idea of this kind of filming actually came from another artist, namely by Birgit Hein (1942 – 2023).
Birgit Hein was a very important person within the experimental films and Professor in Braunschweig, and twice a curator for the film program at the Documenta in Kassel.
After separating from her husband Wilhelm, with whom she had made films together, she made films such as the BABY I WILL MAKE YOU SWEAT in 1994. She shot the source material for this film with a small handheld video camera in Jamaica. But when she was back in Germany, she projected that video footage on a cinema screen and filmed it again, with a 16 mm camera. Not the full picture, but the parts of the video image she liked and so on. In addition, she was able to create new camera movements, by filming via the video projection with the 16 mm camera and, of course, also took close-ups and the like, which did not exist in the original image.
A brilliant idea!
Such transformation processes inspired me and I took the idea from Birgit by projecting the material of my videos onto surfaces, such as cardboard boxes and so on, and filming again. Depending on whether it is white, gray, or colored, the cardboard controls the picture I'm filming. Of course, I don't just use cardboard boxes, I also have metal plates and other suitable surfaces.
I have also often created reflections using two video projections, in which the image is projected on top of each other and filmed again. The mirrored image was created on the computer, but not the double exposure. My film ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR in particular, works with such reflections of images that lead to symmetries.
Apart from image cuts and sometimes mirroring the images on the computer, I also use a green screen effect that is included in my old iMovie program. That's pretty much all the digital technology I use for my videos.
Applying green screen "incorrectly" is a wonderful and great way to work with colors and images. Green screen is basically a technique to capture different images as "realistically" as possible. Such as studio images with exterior shots In the past, this was done with rear projections, but it never became that good as with the green screen technology. Action movie scenes can sometimes be filmed entirely in a green studio in order to then be combined with computer animations. I use the green screen montage to combine images with each other, to connect and merge and, above all, to strengthen certain colors.
But let's get back to the classic cinema of material processing!
Proper analogue film material can be lit and melted, buried in the ground, hung in trees and left to pollute and gather dust, thus basically always creating new images.
And, of course, it is also possible to glue things to the material and to scratch into the material or grind directly onto it, which for e.g. Stan Brakhage or the New Zealander Len Lye (1901 – 1980) among many others have done.
This technique which directly manipulates the material and thus creates a film without the use of a camera is also called "direct Filming" and Len Lye is the great pioneer here.
Almost legendary for the material processing of found footage pictures by digging in, cooking and the like is the German film group SCHMELZDAHIN, to which Jochen Lempert, Jochen Müller and Jürgen Reble belong, and who were active from 1979 to 1989. Also working with such techniques has been the American artist Carolee Schneemann in the 1960s. The Big Difference Between Schneemann and SCHMELZDAHIN is that SCHMELZDAHIN mostly used found footage and Schneemann used self-shot footage, often with strongly sexual content.
More thoughts:
Power, identification and representation can best be achieved through figurative, i.e. narrative representations, on the other hand, abstract, forms rather a method to convey mental states and not fit for representation or propaganda, any more than they are suitable for addressing values or consumer needs.
What I'm trying to say is that abstract art is a form of Utopia because it stands for itself and is sufficient for itself. On the other hand, abstract works of art are of course not very good at thematizing social injustice or other political issues.
Maybe one can put it this way that abstract and semi-abstract works don't lie, but they also don't have a substantive message, they are self-sufficient and above all provide material and aesthetics.
Of course, not every experimental film or video is abstract (very few are)
Of course, there are also very narrative or documentary, experimental works.
I'm interested in diversity in art. By which I mean that feature film, documentary and experimental works must coexist on an equal footing. The narrative formats are certainly more suitable for conveying or promoting content and for discussions, while the abstract, non-narrative work is more of a contemplation or aesthetic pleasure.
I have always been a follower of Amos Vogel (1921-2012) who wrote the legendary book FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART (first published in 1974), and in which he notes that great cinematic works of art can be found in every genre in any area. It doesn't matter if it's experimental film, underground or Hollywood. Masterpieces are created everywhere in all genres and all over the world, and of course, the opposite holds true as well. I always found this view by Amos Vogel healthy and totally agree with it.
My films are not really abstract. But they have a tendency towards abstraction.
In any case, the films on 16 mm work with descriptive images and the videos basically have to do with the overlay of descriptive images. Sometimes the image is superimposed until it almost becomes an abstract image, but most of the time, in the end you are able to see the sea or the landscape well, only your depiction no longer corresponds to the "realistic" image in the nature.
In DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE, it's always about the cycle of life. It's born and it's dying. Even if this is not always easy to see and perhaps presupposes that the viewer recognizes, for example, what a dragonfly love couple looks like, on the other hand, I think that it is also is not a problem if you don't recognize it.
Either way, the cycle of life and passing away will be clear in the flow of pictures.
TRACES OF GARDEN is a walk through an imaginary garden (as the title suggests), where a pair of lovers go into the bushes. The images are repeated in changes, as if one were in a garden that is always the same and yet not so, because everything is always changing. The sound for the film is by Ralf Freudenberger and, of course, is of great importance because of the effect on the images.
ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR is probably the most semi-abstract film, which I have made so far, but there are still clear images in this film.
But the film no longer has fragments of a narrative.
Rather, it is an associative poem about an imaginary landscape and the imaginary sea that goes with it. Whereby I use the word "imaginary", quite in a general sense of the everyday use of language, which means something like illusory, which takes place only in the imagination or fictitiously.
The film was made at a time when I was thinking a lot about the climate change and in the beginning the film was supposed to be more of a dirge about the disturbance of nature by man and the sea appeared as a threatening symbol. Out of the sea, so to speak, came life, and through the climate change, the sea is taking back its habitat, by flooding again what once arose from it.
But in the course of the work, this thought disappeared more and more and the film became more of a meditation on life, albeit in my perception, the film still has a melancholic mood.
I still consider climate change to be a major threat to the planet.
I just don't think you can change the world with experimental semi-abstract in the sense of changing the awareness of the climate crisis.
So far, I thought it wiser to make a work that would at least make me happy instead of producing a work that is just a "nightmare".
The music for ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR is by Goh Lee Kwang, who lives in Malaysia. I asked him to make a score for the film, which was very monotonous and has only minor changes, and is far removed from of the European classical music tradition.
The somewhat odd title of the film is a quote from a book by Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888), an English botanist and 19th century naturalist, who in his book OMPHALOS: AN
ATTEMPT TO UNTIE THE GEOLOGICAL KNOT (1857, reissued by Ox Bow Pr, 1998), developed a theory which is absolutely unprovable in the scientific sense.
A curious book, which contains extensive scientific knowledge (in the sense of the 1850s) and connects this with conservative religious Ideas.
His thesis, which he presents in the book, awakens the fantasy.
His starting point is that God has not only created life but also a past that, according to Gosse, never took place.
To make a long story short, Gosse was a friend of Darwin and a follower of
the theory of evolution. But he was also Christian, conservative and
wanted to use the theory to identify certain problems in the history of the world and to solve them.
But God also created, according to Gosse's theory, a past with Dinosaurs and the like.
Of course, you also have to understand the book from the time it was written, and finally it became clear in the course of the 18th century that there is such a thing as extinct animal species and in earlier times the Earth had a completely different life.
Until then, it was inconceivable for Europeans to think that animals could become extinct.
A sudden and rapid extinction also appeared unthinkable for the most naturalists until the 1980s. Charles Darwin, e.g. the idea that animals and plant species are slowly becoming extinct while at the same time, also slowly, new species are developing.
This is of course an exciting topic and says a lot about our thinking. That it took such a long time, until the 1980s, that it was finally proven (definitely for most people) that animals and plants can die out en masse. Reading Elizabeth Kolbert's book THE SIXTH EXTINCTION — AN UNNATURAL HISTORY from 2014 is very interesting on the topic.
Transience still seems difficult to imagine for many people.
To be clear, I am not a follower of Ph. H. Gosses theory, but I like such mind games and find the idea that God created a past that never existed, very creative.
This corresponds to human art production, so to speak, since sometimes we create "worlds" that never existed.
Thoughts on the idea of time:
In the "European Imagination", time is generally seen as a line. The story is moving towards a goal, which is basically what the word teleology means. So time is "linear" and there is a goal.
Thought of in Christianity in general, as the Last Days, the Last Judgment, and Redemption.
In a more secular sense, one can understand the pursuit of ever more economic growth as a teleological perception of time, which is very typical of our neoliberal European countries.
The climate crisis in which we find ourselves is, in my view, a result of such linear thinking.
In narrative film, the idea that there is a goal is very often suggested. For example, a process of change in the main actor, "from immature to a mature person" or the classic happy ending model. Filmmakers like Casper Noë or Christopher Nolan like to play with the structure of time, but remain trapped in the idea of development. Even though the story is narrated from "front to back" it doesn't really make any difference, again a story is narrated that develops over a time frame and leads to (or away) a goal.
I've always been fascinated by films and works of art that don't have a narrative development. Probably because it is precisely the linear narrative with its goal, i.e. conclusion, that always seems to me like the great propaganda and illusion of the European narrative culture.
My films TRACES OF GARDEN & ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS
HOUR works with an ever-changing flow of images (edited found footage and original material), which to me are visual fragments.
The images are superimposed and fragmented. Like ruins of old buildings or even more precisely the frescoes within ruins that have been destroyed by the weather in a process of decay. Whereas an image that is in a process of decay always gives a new picture, it may not be the image that corresponded to the artist's imagination. Through time and the weather, something "new" emerges.
Only that in one case this happens through nature and time (the frescoes in the ruins) and in the other case, artists consciously evoke processes of image change. Just as Carolee Schneemann, the group SCHMELZDAHIN, or Jürgen Reble have done.
Basically, the process of change is nothing more than a fermentation process, as we understand it from the point of view of enjoyment and food. Alcohol, tobacco, cheese, miso, everything is based on fermentation.
TRACES OF GARDEN & ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR work with streams of images that do not have any narrative development, in the sense of storytelling, and are accompanied by music and sounds. These are perceptual states that the film's desire to trigger and perception underlies a subjective experience of the individual viewer. This means that each viewer will have his or her own interpretation. The viewer has to get involved with the respective film, the metamorphoses of sound and images, and is invited to develop his or her own thoughts and perceptions.
TRACES OF GARDEN & ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR I see as pure cinematic mediations. The films are relatively long, one 72 minutes, the other 60
Minutes.
But the films, in my opinion, need this time to give the chance to perception, to forget the perception of time and thus enter a continuum in which one can let oneself drift.
In this respect, each of these films demands the viewer to bid goodbye to
the conventional dramaturgy of time with its suspense arcs.
All three films from me that can be seen here at the festival are basically films that exist only in the viewer's perception and thus take place at the moment in which they are seen. Even if they are stored, or are present as digital material and are viewed again.
This is certainly true in some way for every work of art, even the narrative feature film exists only if it is seen and can trigger different perceptions and thoughts in different viewers.
Perhaps the philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753), is right when he writes in his philosophical works about perception, and there he developed the idea that everything only exists at the moment of perception, by a human or by God.
To put it simply, this means that a tree, for example, can only exist as long as a human being has it in view, but this is not only true for trees, but also for rooms and houses.
Everything exists, according to Berkeley, only as long as someone perceives it. But because there is a God, who is all encompassing, Berkeley believes, every tree and every house, etc. is always present, but basically, they only exist because they are perceived.
If anyone finds the thought confusing, I ask you to excuse me. The idea of Berkeley may sound a bit absurd to us today, but the thought from him has something poetic about it and is, basically, it's not entirely wrong. Because every piece of music, every text, every film is created every time on the new ones when played, heard, read or watched. Otherwise, a film is just a roll of film or a digital file and this is not the same as the film with its moving images and sounds that we perceive at the moment of its performance.
Spiritually, the films DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE, TRACES OF GARDEN and ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR are inspired by the idea of a living nature in which we humans are a part and form a community with all other beings on this planet.
As part of the master class, the film TRACES OF GARDEN (72 minutes) from 2016 was shown here after the end of the lecture. While the films DRAGONFLIES WITH BIRDS AND SNAKE (60 minutes) from 2012 and ITS EXISTENCE COMMENCED THIS HOUR (60 minutes) from 2019 were shown outside the master class as independent screenings.
© Wolfgang Lehmann, 2023.
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