Hippocampus

In Monelle, Diego Marcon explores — both literally and figuratively — the emotional and psychological impact that a space can have. The Casa del Fascio – the modernist icon inaugurated as the headquarters of the Italian Fascist Party – is shrouded in complete darkness. Like a historical ghost, Marcon’s 35mm camera roams a labyrinth of rooms that, at irregular intervals, ignite in sharp flashes of light. The rigid structures of the palace form the backdrop against which ominous scenes unfold: figures, both real and artificial, appear in various guises and poses. The flashes are too fleeting to fully grasp what is going on. Through light, darkness and threatening ambient sounds, the spectator tries to navigate a historical constellation that continues to resonate in the present. 

Already in this early work, Vincent Grenier proofs himself a master of visual ambiguity. A dark room with a small window serves as the setting through which Grenier explores the transformative power of the mobile camera. The window adopts a multitude of forms: geometric shape, symbol, mediator and point of reference. The camera – initially tracing mainly diagonal lines, but gradually becoming more volatile – analyzes the space through movement. The contours of the window act as a doubling of the boundaries of both the lens and the projection screen. Like the camera movements, the light within the space becomes increasingly dynamic, ultimately radiating beyond the cinematic apparatus, while never losing the potential for darkness. 

In Corridor, Standish Lawder transforms an ordinary passageway into a disorienting and psychedelic haunted house. Set to the music of Terry Riley’s A Rainbow in Curved Air, Lawder’s longest film is half terrifying, half playful. The simple act of walking through the corridor — where, at times, a naked woman appears — gradually loses all spatial grounding through endless repetitions and image mutations. The walls become malleable, eventually dissolving into pure columns of light that stand in stark contrast to the pitch-black void at the end of the tunnel. Using self-built printers, Lawder achieves effects that, in his own words, create ​“an occasion for meditative speculation,” an experience normally reached only through meditation, drugs, or direct electrical stimulation of the brain. 

According to Richard Serra, Railroad Turnbridge is a reflection on the transition from welded iron constructions to riveting, which gave rise to the massive steel structures of the early 20^th century. Serra visited the bridge over the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, six times over the course of a year, in an attempt to deconstruct what ​“bridgeness” meant to him. He mounted the camera on a rotating section of the turnbridge, allowing the invisible mechanism to do its work. The inherent mobility of the camera creates a disorientation between what is moving and what is still. Does the camera frame the bridge, or does the bridge frame the camera? This way, Serra traces the notions of mechanics, technology and materiality back to the camera and the lens. He distanced himself from the idea of a ​“sculptural film,” which sought to reconcile his film work with his sculptural practice. Instead, Railroad Turnbridge is imbued with a fascination for the possibilities and limitations of film itself — the flat presentation of a sublime and inherently perspectival phenomenon.

Chinese Firedrill represents a series of firsts for Will Hindle. Known for his extraordinary technical craftsmanship, the filmmaker gave up some artistic control in this work. William Hunter and John Schofill handled part of the cinematography, allowing Hindle to focus on acting for the first time. In a friend’s warehouse, Hindle for the first time designed a film set and shot most of the footage in just four days. Also new for Hindle here is the multitude of people passing by, ​“but briefly, as gashes of memories or visions.”

Chinese Firedrill remains an enigma, even within Hindle’s own body of work. The film has rarely been screened, and thus lives on primarily through the superlatives of esteemed critics. Amos Vogel described it in Film as a Subversive Art as ​“a claustrophobic, oppressive study of a man in a room, cell or universe.” In Expanded Cinema, Gene Youngblood called it ​“a romantic, nostalgic film. Yet its nostalgia is of the unknown — of vague emotions, haunted dreams, unspoken words, silences between sounds.” In Hindle’s own words, the film centers around ​“the maelstrom in a room, cell or universe, inhabited by a Hungarian-Gypsy type.”