23rd of february, day 2 of sonic acts

by nicky  

Starting the day with following lectures by Ulf Langheinrich regarding his works opposed to a hard science input by Frank Kooi, it gave a nice opposition between the artistic approach of experimenting and trusting on your own senses and the hard science way of researching and depending on the outcome of numerous people senses.

After seeing Langheinrich’s ‘Drift’ during the performances in Paradiso later that evening I realized that this piece by Ulf was actually meeting the research done at TNO halfway. While Drift’s aim was to abstractive a realistic image into nothingness, one of the researches done at TNO was the opposite, namely to make interfaces that for instance allowed blind people to come out of a visual nothingness into a vaguely contoured more realistic image.

A nice conclusion of Frank Kooi after hearing Ulf’s approach: TNO should invest money in artists who make multi sensorial art, which resulted in a loud clapping by the audience

On to the next lecture by Timothy Druckrey; which immediately had the atmosphere of a warm and “gezellige” gathering of people. His story consisted of showing lots of interesting film clips that showed the history of computing. The clip of Heinz von Forester was most enjoyable and definitely recommendable.

Heinz von Forester

Then the self acclaimed renowned mumbler Joost Rekveld gave a lecture on ‘Mechanization of the Magical Sign’. Following an illuminating presentation which consisted of images of works by Rekveld’s heroes, we’ve got a clear idea of what it is that tickles Joost Rekveld. Images that struck me were the nave ceiling of the Church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome made by Andrea Pozzo and the images from ‘Lapis’ by James Whitney, one of the great masters of visual music.’

ceiling of the Church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome by Andrea Pozzo

Joost Rekveld also tipped on the on the fact that Brakhage who saw his films as documentaries rather than abstract films because of his attempt of recreating the visuals like afterimage and phosphenes (the inner cinema that appears when rubbing your closed eyes). ‘Feld’ by Granular Synthesis, which was shown later that evening, came for me also very close to this phenomenon.

Showing us examples of beautiful swarms of birds and constellations of points from stills of the film ‘Lapis’ by James Whitney, this theme would later return in the film programme ‘Absolute Time’ as swarms of fishes were swimming through the reef in ‘Careless Reef’ by Gerard Holthuis, which created at a certain point the optical illusion in which my friend saw an Escher like drawing. But also in ‘Drift’, which at times seemed a glance through a microscope looking at millions of germs or tons of illuminating algae in the deep sea where no sunlight ever reaches.

still from Lapis by James Whitney

After lately having been surrounded by interactive artworks the film programme and the performances today were a warm return to the womb of the cinematic experience in which I was reduced to being a passive spectator again, trapped in the gaze of flickering images. I felt like a night creature that is frozen by the blinding headlights of a car, while dozing of into fractal like patterns.

I think it’s fair to say that after experiencing this day filled with films like ‘The Flicker’ by Tony Conrad and the performance PV868 by TeZ that I’m now officially declared flickerproof of epileptic seizures.