Todeskino completed a film called "Wilhelm Reich" ( 16 mm, 8340 frames, 6'). The film is built of 16 cells, sequences where the frame-units are corresponding to the Fibonacci series that were applied to a measure of film durations by Todeskino ("CineFrAc" / Golden Section / human proportions).
The cells follow steps of 2 or 3 numbers of the first, left, classic Fibonacci series that sum up to another number in the series, whereas the sums of the 3 units steps result in a number of the second, right series which is based on the double of the first. See the following illustration:
For the composition of part I the random generator random.org brings the 16 cells into a random order. The subjects of the units are consisting of b/w found footage (partly negative), colorized in 6 colors of the spectrum by Todeskino's special film colorizing method. The material represents Reichian topics (scientific, biologic, microscopic, cellular, cosmic, erotic and political images). For the structure of part II random.org was deciding a random order of 100 cells, where the single sequences can occur repeatedly. In the film the sequences are edited as long as every cell has appeared at least once, which is resulting in 51 sequences of cells in the present film. The film's total duration sums up to 8340 frames.
Stills from "Wilhelm Reich" by Todeskino:
Wilhelm Reich as a child
some simplistic schemes of the Reichian universe found on the internet:
Todeskino completed a new film in the series New Film Conceptions, "Polynomials 9936", 7' 16mm. The
film is conceived after the principle of a „functional montage“. The durations
of the film units for the sequences are projected as mathematical functions. On
the abscissa the units are passing after the progressive timeline and added to
sequences. The durations of the frame-units are a result from the function
values on the ordinate, that are varying after the progressing units and calculated
after polynomial functions.
concept of a functional film montage by Todeskino
Elements of composition after
the mentioned polynomial-distributed durations of the filmframe-units are the sequences as
„film-polynomials“, that are succeeding consecutively numbered (#1-16), at
which the total number of frames is indicated, that is distributed by each
function (e.g. #1 / 264) and 9936 in the title is refering to the entire
film’s frame number that is distributed,
organized and composed by the single polynomials. And the "subjects" of the film units consisting of clear leader dyed in the six colors of the spectrum with a special colorizing technique developed by Todeskino, found footage material, found footage dyed in the mentioned colors, original material, original material dyed in the same colors and finally black leader with abstract geometric figures scratched
into it with the help of templates. All distributions for the subjects/materials were decided by a random generator at www.random.org stills from the film showing examples of the different elements:
polynomial functions distributing the frame units for the sequences #6 to 9 of the film
New Film Conceptions 2 – The Shape of Film to Come 14' 16mm b/w
The film’s composition
follows the algebraic notation of a chessgame, transfering it directly on to
the film strip and the number of frames. The positions of the chess pieces are
indicated by black and clear leader with scratchings or marks showing the
coordinates of the chess board, the moves of the pieces are displayed in the way
that the number of squares in the movements is corresponding to the number of
film frames. On the film strip one could indeed reconstruct the game. (In the
introduction sequences showing the chess board the principles of the golden
section and the Fibonacci numbers in the framework are applied again as in our
previous works.)
Furthermore the six
different chess pieces are illustrated by tarot cards (taken from the Aleister
Crowley/Frieda Harris Thot tarot deck), positive for white and negative for
black, amplifying the collective symbolic connotations of the chessgame for the
human psyche. Chess is a game of representation, historically reflecting the
feudal system and the social forms of power, classes and sovereignitythat are derived from religious structures
until today.
Thus the correspondence
with the tarot cards opens up the concept towards a symbolic transgression that
goes beyond the limited aspects of human rationality that is based on and
derived from a godlike reason. Chess is representing a male system of paternal
power and its logic of strategic war. Therefore the first games from the series
of the famous chess world championship 1972 were chosen for the composition (http://tchecmeet.free.fr/parties/view/spass-fischer.htm),
because after a long dominance of soviet players it also had the political
dimension of reflecting the cold war situation on the chessboard, a prestige game
of war and power displaying an almost fetichelike human rationality and
paranoia.
(Note that in the chess
federations in the ELO points rating system there is an unquestioned
discrimination of women, treating their master degree for less, showing that
the chess world overall is traditionally rooted in reactionary surroundings.)
The allusions in the title
„The Shape of Film to Come“ are manifold. Obviously the concept is inspired by
music. In 1968 John Cage and Marcel Duchamp played a game of chess as a
performance where their moves on an electronically prepared chessboard were transformed into sounds. In
1959 free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman made an album „The Shape of Jazz to
Come“ that was programmatically foreshadowing a new style and conception in
jazz. It has a great irony too for us proclaiming new conceptions for the
future in film exactly at a point where film itself, its materiality, is dying
out, giving way for pure digital cinema that is in most cases very limited and
poor in its scope of thinking compared to the analogue. There is no future for
film and there is no real film to come any more. Todeskino displays death in
motion and was born in the times of the irreversable death of film. But the
fear of death is the crucial basis of human existence. Man is not master of
time. Film is the last art in the row of art forms and the only one to really
create in the field of both space and time, even more expanded than in modern
architecture. With film art dies. The digital image mediatry to control everything by a binary code
system and the way of „computing“ analogue material fame by frame structurally
appears to us as the only way to transgress that. Chess is predestinated to
illustrate this binary world of black and white in cold logic. It is a
ridiculous, neurotic or sometimes even psychotic, human attempt to challenge
death. In Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh
Seal a desperate knight plays chess with death and the pool is his life.
But death says „I give no respite“. It is the futile try to suspend what comes
in future, the inevitable move of a „superhuman“ transgressive force. Chess is,
like all art forms, and it is an art in itself in a way, an economic system, in
the closed form of limited economy like Bataille would say, and on the fringes
of its representation that what transgresses it. The art of the chess master is
anticipation of the future until there is no future left and nothing to come
exept the death of the king, the taboo, the feared incestuous transgression. (video, „I see“…)
The gaining of "time" and "space" is indeed a classical term in chess strategy. Today there are absurd
battles reflecting the late global capitalistic status, to write chess programs
with fantastic ratings that are playing the world championships among
themselves and that no human grandmaster is able to beat any more. The machine,
although constructed by humans, overpowers them and leaves a blind spot in a grotesque
unconscious identification or projection: mortality. Through the machine age of
late modern technological civilisation a kind of „immortality“ is tried to be obtained,
neglecting that even gods die… The
battle for space, the 2nd WW, was transformed more and more into a battle for
time, „information“, during the cold war period, now in the post-political post
cold war era the battle to control the masses is raging on as a struggle for
information revealing itself every year in new processors for faster and more
complex calculations, more electronic „space“ for data storage, higher
resolutions for pornographic images, grotesque financial games and so on. Needless to say that there is another aspect of what is to come: fatality. The tarot is traditionally used for divination. As long as the film is played from the reel there are always frames to come. The shape of film to come is our film. We don't stop playing - far out...
the
coordinates of the chessboard used for the algebraic notation of a
chess game, basis for the film's score and notation structurally, frame
by frame
Thot, egyptian god of the scribes and of magic
tarot card "The Fool" from the Aleister Crowley/Frieda Harris "Thoth" deck, in the film representing the chessgame's pawn piece
The Knight of Wands, representing the knight
The Tower, illustrating the rook
The Hierophant, representing the bishop
The Empress, representing the queen
The Emperor, representing the king
stills from "The Seventh Seal" by Ingmar Bergman
the psychoanalysis of a cold war, Fischer vs. Spassky 1972
John Cage & Marcel Duchamp, "Reunion" performance Toronto 1968
John Cage:
In Zen they say:
If something is boring after two
minutes,
try it
for four.
If
still boring,
try
it for eight,
sixteen,
thirty-two,
and so on.
Eventually one discovers that it’s not
boring at all
but very interesting.
Chess & Jazz Anthony Braxton: Chess is an affirmation of proportional logic, chess is an affirmation of geometry and composition is sonic geometry ... number is also poetic.
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