Light/Image/IllusionThe
Aegina Academy
A Forum for Art and Science
By Gustav Deutsch and Hanna Schimek
14-22 May 2005, Aegina, Greece
Forum website: http://www.light-image.net.
Reviewed by Martha Blassnigg
marthablassnigg@yahoo.com
The Aegina Academy, a cultural forum for
art and science, was founded by the Austrian
artists Gustav Deutsch and Hanna Schimek,
with the aim to "contribute to the
promotion of independent and critical
dealings with media, thus taking a step
in the direction of democratising the
media" (Schimek and Deutsch, "Press
Release"). At the background of pioneering
film work, Deutsch and Schimek opened
up their private laboratory on the beautiful
island Aegina not only to the public,
inhabitants, and Greek artists and scientists,
but also to invited scientists and artists
of international standing to participate
in a discussion and exhibition forum,
contained in a cultural project called
the Aegina Academy. First realized
in 2003 with the topic Light/Image/Reality,
the Aegina Academy follow-up its
debut this year with a theme focused on
the interrelation between light, image
and illusion, comprising a symposium,
public lectures, art education projects
and workshops, exhibitions, and film screenings.
This review gives a brief overview on
the Aegina Academy by situating
its theme in a discussion within the wider
framework of Gustav Deutschs and
Hanna Schimeks work.
Light/Image/Illusion opened with an exhibition
cycle and lectures by neuro-scientist
Richard L. Gregory and pre-cinema specialist
Werner Nekes at the Goethe-Institute in
Athens. In the following symposium in
Aegina, organized by philosopher Fay Zika,
international specialists from the disciplines
art education, art history, philosophy,
media and film studies, natural and social
sciences (especially psychology, neuroscience
and computer science), brought to attention
various related aspects such as the psychological
and physiological precondition of perception
(see for example Freeman, Kubaczek, Pircher,
Venieri, Vidnyánszky) veridical
representation and fictional construction
as in Virtual Reality or other new media
environments (Jahrmann, Klett, Sarris),
and an emphasis on art education and historical
views on the history of technologies of
optics and media art (Hyman, Peternak,
Punt, Santorinaios, Zielinski). With a
strong emphasis on philosophy, art-education
and neuro-psychology, the symposium encouraged
a stimulating discussion forum in a small
but highly specialist community with outreaches
to the public via several art educational
and exhibition projects, public lectures
and guided tours. A fuller account of
the symposium and events at the Aegina
Academy, can be found at www.light-image.net.
The Aegina Academy emerged from
a generous gesture by an individual artist
and is a reflection of Deutschs
energy in his creative work with the medium
film and his exploration of public interface.
Originally trained as an architect, Gustav
Deutsch became an independent filmmaker
in the late 1980s often mentioned
in the context of the contemporary Austrian
avant-garde. His work, however, eludes
any clear categorization and stands out
through its originality and particularity,
consisting, as it does, entirely of early
film footage. This material is thoroughly
researched by Deutsch and Schimek, and
they have become familiar faces in film
archives around the world where they mostly
seem to disappear behind huge piles of
reels. Deutschs films investigate
the very mechanisms of cinema and perception,
commenting on the artistic expressions
of the intrinsic qualities of its medium.
This approach is most accurately exemplified
in the series Film ist., which
can be interpreted as deconstruction of
film in terms of language and movement.
As Tom Gunning has pointed out in his
article "Film ist. A Primer for a
Visual World", this project can be
defined as the first film theory on film.
Now it becomes clear, however, that Deutsch
and Schimek have ambitions that lie beyond
the mere deconstruction of movement and
time or an analysis of the interrelation
between image and language in the cinematographic
experience.
This becomes most apparent in Deutsch
and Schimeks work in Aegina, in
particular in the Camera Obscura in Perdika,
which is an integrated work of art embedded
in the landscape and culture in a gentle
and modest waycharacteristics
of their film work, which is also simultaneously
personal and private, and generous and
public. The Camera Obscura in Perdika
is situated at the Southwest end of the
island and has already become a major
attraction. It is the worlds first
Camera Obscura with a 360 degree panorama,
sited at an optimal free standing location
surrounded by a scenery of sea, islands
and inland mountains. It really is a Camera
Obscura Rotunda, a cylindrical wooden
building, constructed by the architect
Franz Berzl and Gustav Deutsch and realized
in collaboration with Gavrillos Michalis.
When the visitor enters from the startling
bright light of the island into the dark,
it takes time for the eyes to adjust before
almost magically there appear the inverted
images on the twelve surrounding translucent
screens. After approximately 15 to 20
minutes, the eyes become fully adapted
and are able to perceive small details
such as the waves or even birds. Because
the twelve holes in the wooden round construction
overlap in the throw of their projection,
a small section of each screen is repeated
and this creates a complex visual experience
wherein an object for example can appear
three times on three successive screens.
This artwork in public space is maintained
by a guard from the village Perdika and
has apparently gained great popularity
amongst the inhabitants of the island
who call it Panagitsa (small
chapel). It is particularly appreciated
by young lovers replaying some of the
kiss-in-the-tunnel films that were so
popular in early cinema.
In addition to this extraordinary experience
of a multiple screen panorama, during
the Aegina Academy every evening
closed with a film screening in front
of the Makellos Tower (built in the 17th
century and housing the Greek Government
when it transferred to Aegina in the 1820s).
Inside next to the organizers office
there were some exhibitions of work by
artists, including Deutsch and Schimeks
"Atlas" Part 1 and Athanassions
photography project, and the installation
"Kino-Illusion" by Mark-Paul
Meyer form the Netherlands Filmmuseum
on the top floor. "Kino-Illusion"
occupied five windows on the top floor
of the tower facing the courtyard, they
were illuminated from the inside to reveal
still frames from early films: one a single
frame, the second a sequence of three
frames, two with several single frames
and a Marey movement study with a moving
body in several postures within one frame.
Next to these still images, which were
also visible from the inside of the tower,
the same images were also presented in
a video sequence on a monitor at their
original speed.
While the film enthusiast and early cinema
specialist may have tended to investigate
into the origins of these images in order
to situate them in the context of a narrative
or of film history in general, the installation
"Kino-Illusion" inhibited any
such formalization. The displayed images
asked for contemplation rather than contextualization
and held the viewers attention.
This strategy was comparable with the
moment when during the projection process
the images are halted in the gate for
a fragment of a second, while the shutter
of the Maltese cross interrupts the light
beam and as a consequence enforces the
illusion of continuous movement in our
visual perception. "Kino-Illusions"
evocation of contemplation suggested that
it is in our mind that these images move,
start to move or cease to move; they not
only invigorate virtual visual movement
but also a freezing of the stream of thought
interrelating the associations between
single frames. More than movement, "Kino-Illusion"
characterized the various time qualities
involved in the cinema experience and
by slowing down the time of the difference
between the image sequences to a point
zero: the fragments created a sense of
timelessness. Because they were not entities
in themselves, such as still photography
usually presents, these images were open
to all sides asking for associative framing,
something that in this context they were
neither able to fulfill nor allow. Though
"Kino-Illusion" did not necessarily
surrender the visitor to a metaphysical
experience; the moving fragments on the
Video screen did not, as may be expected,
reconcile the impulse to actually see
the flow of motion in the still frames,
but rather extended the perception of
time and movement, as for example in the
slow-motion of some fragments. Finally
and rather thoughtfully, the exhibition
space on the top floor also included a
small library with works on movement and
film, illusion and perception, where the
various deconstructed viewing experiences
from the exhibitions could be integrated
into a discussion about a possible alternative
approach to the film experience, questioning
a long tradition of orthodox treatments
of film in theory as a language or as
representations of reality.
The work with still frames at the Aegina
Academy, as for example shown in "Kino-Illusion"
and also in the exhibition "Illusionistic
Quadrat" in the Laografiko Museum
Aegina, resonated with Deutsch and Schimeks
most recent work; their picture collection
"Atlas": an Image-Library containing
more than 2000 images. Following an idea
of art-historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929)
who towards the end of his life expressed
his core ideas on art history in his famous
picture atlas Mnemosyne, panels
with an assemblage of diverse images from
different media (maps, photographs of
paintings, drawings, etc.), Deutsch and
Schimek produce image collages centering
around the subject of light and image.
This Atlas, named after the two symposia
"Light/Image/Reality" and "Light/Image/Illusion"
has been presented during the Aegina festival
in 2003 and 2005, and also at the contemporary
art museum Lentos in Linz in 2004 and
is currently exhibited in the Kunsthalle
in Vienna. Either on light boards lit
from below (Linz), screened as image show
from DVD (Aegina 2005), or the Light-box,
projected images on the facade of the
Kunsthalle in Vienna in June 2005, the
flow of pictures plays with our perception
of sequential images, creating illusions
by false references and associations.
Warburgs crucial insights are reflected
in the interrelation and meaning between
the images, in which he saw archetypical
meanings in the movement beyond the visible
shapes and an invigoration of the Dionysian
principal in art. While Warburgs
unorthodox approach found a place in the
discipline of art history, possible relationships
with the moving image technology, a new
technology of his time, have been recently
pointed out by Philippe-Alain Michaud.
He establishes an interrelation between
the mechanisms of cinema technology and
Warburgs method of the Mnemosyne
in his recent publication Aby Warburg
and the image in motion (which will
be reviewed here next month). Warburg
is currently undergoing a revival of interest
and Deutsch and Schimek, truly visionaries
in this respect, have anticipated this
reconsideration of the relevance of his
approach in contemporary discussions on
the meaning of images and image technology
in the context of new media environments.
By moving away from the actual image in
sequence running through a projector,
Deutsch and Schimeks focus on the
still image seems to suggest a crucial
shift in attention from movement to motion,
an emphasis on the forces behind and beyond
the actual surfaces, aspects which in
retrospect can be traced throughout their
oeuvre.
A full listing of Deutschs films
can be found at www.sixpackfilm.com.
References:
Gunning, Tom. "Film ist. "A
Primer for a Visual World". http://www.sixpackfilm.com/archive/texte/01_filmvideo/filmist_gunningE.html.
Michaud, Philippe-Alain. 2004. Aby
Warburg and Image in Motion. New York:
Zone Books.
"Film list Gustav Deutsch."
http://www.sixpackfilm.com/catalogue.php?lang=en&pid=1596.