Peter Kubelka: Monument Film
NYFF50: Views from the Avant-Garde
October 4 - 8, 2012
“[Antiphon is] a remake [of Kubelka's classic 1960 film Arnulf Rainer] in the literal sense of the word – light becomes dark, sound becomes silence, in a reverse rhythm. And the projection of these twins, these two synthetical and contradictory works, are to be – according to Kubelka’s concept – screened consecutively, one after the other; doubly projected next to each other and then, finally, one superimposed over the other.” —Viennale program notes
1. Arnulf Rainer | 1958-60 | Austria | 6.24m. | b/w | sound | 35mm
2. Antiphon | 2012 | Austria | 6.24m. | b/w | sound | 35mm
3. Arnulf Rainer & Antiphon simultaneous projection side by side
4. Arnulf Rainer & Antiphon superimposed double projection
Technical realization by Robert Film Services
Monument Film sculpture
64 strips of 35mm film, each consisting of 144 frames, mounted on surfaces of three-panel enclosure (3.7m x 3.7m x 3.3m)
Panel A: Arnulf Rainer
Panel B: Arnulf Rainer & Antiphon
Panel C: Antiphon
I am announcing a new film Antiphon (2012) which is part of a new work Monument Film (2012)
Antiphon is constituted by the same 4 basic elements of cinema, light and darkness, sound and silence, as is my film Arnulf Rainer but it has the opposite form. Negative becomes positive, positive becomes negative, silence becomes sound, sound becomes silence. Six minutes 24 seconds, black and white, optical sound, 35 millimeter film.
Monument Film appears in TWO forms:
I) analogue projection in a dark and silent space of:
1) Arnulf Rainer
2) Antiphon
3) Arnulf Rainer and Antiphon projected at the same time, side by side.
The appearance is continuous light alternating in space between two projectors and continuous sound alternating between two speakers.
4) Arnulf Rainer and Antiphon projected at the same time on one screen by two projectors with two speakers.
The appearance theoretically is a continuous projection of WHITE light and continuous sound. But there is a slight alternation between the two machines, articulating the materiality of classic cinema.
II) installation in a bright rectangular space defined by three white walls.
The films are cut, each, in 128 strips of equal length, which hang on nails and are arranged in a rectangular, metric form.
Left wall: Arnulf Rainer
Right wall: Antiphon mirrored exactly opposite
Center wall: Arnulf Rainer and Antiphon placed one over the other.
The appearance is, theoretically, a BLACK rectangle but the antiphony is articulated by the two strips of film.—P.K.
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