Animated Music / Visual Music

(extracts from the catalog of the 8. INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF ANIMATED FILM STUTTGART, Stuttgart, Germany, March 1996)


The history of the abstract formal film is characterized by its close relationship to music.

The interest of the avant-garde artists of the Weimar Republic such as Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter or Walter Ruttmann in visual conversions of musical structures, was the starting point of the non-narrative and non-naturalistic film. Oskar Fischinger intensified this beginning and after his emigration influenced an entire generation of filmmakers on the American west coast, such as the Whitney Brothers.

Fischingers film "R-1. A game of form" was originally a tripleprojection. Using different techniques, such as cut-outs, cell animation, double exposure, colourizing and wax-walz-technique, he presents a manifold repertoire of compositional elements.

The works of Norman McLaren and Len Lye, with their leading technique of working directly on the film using scratch, paint, and draw techniques, which was experimented upon first of all during state- commissioned productions, are also of large importance to the development of the formal film.

Marked by the influence of the so-called artists, several generations of filmmakers are developing, who are dedicating themselves to Visual Music.

With films by Hy Hirsh, James Whitney, David Ehrlich, and Steven Subotnick, only a sampling of the breadth of this artistic expression can be presented.

In Europe the idea of Visual Music in the structural films of the 60´s and 70´s, was increasingly regarded from a conceptual, media-reflexive point of view. It is remarkable, that a part of the young generation of animated filmmakers such as Bärbel Neubauer and Thomas Renoldner are intensively concentrating in this field, and are continuing with the tradition of the genre.

Another part tries to achieve an up-to-date expansion of Visual Music in the context of the Techno-culture, through the implementation of computer animation and hard, electronic sounds, although the Swiss Ivan Engler has provocatively blasphemously throws out the question:
Visual Music = Optical Noize?

PROGRAM (Stuttgart 1998):

Rhythmus 21 (Film ist Rhythmus)
Hans Richter
Deutschland; 1921; 35mm; 4 Min.

R-1. Ein Formspiel
Oskar Fischinger
Deutschland; 1927; Dreifachprojektion auf 35mm (Cinemascope); 5.46 Min.

Allegretto
Oskar Fischinger
USA; 1936; 35mm; 3 Min.
Musik/ music: Ralph Rainger

A Colour Box
Len Lye
Großbritannien/ Great Britain; 1935; 35mm; Dufaycolour; 5 Min.
Musik/ music: Don Baretto and his Cuban Orchestra

Begone Dull Care
Norman McLaren
Kanada/ Canada; 1949; 35mm; 8 Min.
Musik/ music: Oskar Peterson Trio

Come Closer
Hy Hirsh
USA; 1952; 16mm; 5 Min.

Yantra
James Whitney
USA; 1950-55; 16mm; 7 Min.

Take Five
Zbigniew Rybczynski
Polen/ Poland; 1972; 35mm; 6 Min.
Musik/ music: Dave Brubeck

Tonespor/ Tone Traces
Leif Marcusson
Dänemark/ Denmark; 1983; 16mm; 8 Min.

Point
David Ehrlich
USA; 1984; 35mm; 3 Min.
Musik/ music: Laurie Spiegel

The Devil's Book
Steven Subotnick
USA; 1994; 35mm; 5 Min.
Musik/ music: Joan La Barbara

Algorhythmen
Bärbel Neubauer
Deutschland; 1994; 35mm; 3.17 Min.

Vision
Kilian Dellers
Schweiz/ Switzerland; 1995; 35mm; 6.30 Min.
Musik/ music: Tassilo Dellers

Rhythmus 94
Thomas Renoldner
Österreich/ Austria; 1994; 35mm; 5 Min.

Sans Titre
Olivier Passemard
Deutschland; 1995; Video (Beta); 3.35 Min.

Optical Noize IV
Ivan Engler
Schweiz/ Switzerland; 1995; Video; 6 Min.