2004, co-author: Pascal Fendrich
video (PAL), electronic music (stereo)
4:39 min.
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The basic concept of Speed Crystal is the integration of picture and sound in an abstract dramaturgy that rests on the principle of constant acceleration.
The process is based on a looped video sequence that has been filmed from the gondola of a Ferris wheel. Because the gondolas turn several times in a horizontal direction in their cradles during the wheel’s revolution, it gives rise to a complex interwoven, multilayered and continually reoccurring movement.
The starting point of the music is the soundtrack of the video sequence that, as the video plays, is subjected to different degrees of rhythmic, tonal and spectral distortion. Analogue to what happens on the pictorial level, the musical process develops from an increasing compartmentalization of temporal levels that are characterized by the varying accelerative process.
The integration of picture and sound is the result of a process that incorporates the close-knit interplay. The software based conveyance of events on the one hand and the human spatial dimension on the other hand lead to a form of abstract dramaturgy that is in no way narrative but, rather, rests solely on the pictorial and compositional means of the video and the music.
The video has been nominated for the ‘Bild-Kunst’ award for experimental film at the Kunstfilm-Biennale 2004 in Cologne and for ‘Deutscher Videokunstpreis’, Marl, 2004.
(first performed in Cologne, November 7th, 2003)