Trajectory (1999) Expanded Cinema Piece

Trajectory Performance- A collaboration with Wolfgang Suppan-16mm Triple projection with Live sound manipulation

Trajectory was a collaboration with Viennese composer Wolfgang Suppan. This Projector Performance was composed of film loops that were shown with sound during a live performance. There were two film projections arranged side by side, projecting images from an old newsreel that depicted people who were trying to prepare themselves and each other from the threat of a gas attack in England during the Second World War. They were both re-photographed onto film and hand processed. The third screen depicted found imagery from the 1939 World’s Fair of spectators seen in silhouette looking at fireworks. What might not be apparent from the documentation due to the low lighting is that an analyst projector, (the same projector that was used to generate all the film loops), projecting the third screen’s imagery, was also used to provide the source sound. A contact microphone was attached to the analyzt projector, and the sound was processed live by Wolfgang using the computer to create myriad patterns that were transformed at times into a hissing gas-mask breath, then into a barrage of rapid machine gun reverberations that crackled. The third screen completed the metaphor for the spectacle of war viewed from another place, completely separated from the environment being affected; an environment of danger, pain and fear. At one point, newsreels were viewed from the comfortable place of the cinema before a feature film. At this point in time, the sensational spectacle of war has proliferated almost invisibly into our consciousness via satellite, television, the internet and other media sources. Death has become transformed and reduced into mere entertainment for the masses who view this spectacle of death in their easy chairs from a distance thousands of miles away from the site of destruction. This disparity was achieved by the juxtaposition of the other two loops, portraying the intimacy of people up close and frightened, and trying to survive in an atmosphere of crisis.

Performed in the Event Entitled "Multitude" Romerstrasse, Stuttgart, Germany

Sponsored By the Akademie Schloss Solitude