Dresden Dynamo 

(1971) 

by Lis Rhodes is the result of experiments with the application of Letraset and Letratone onto clear film. It is about how graphic images create their own sound by extending into that area of film which is ‘read’ by optical sound equipment.

Dresden Dynamo (1972), the earliest film in Lis Rhodes’ abridged but commanding six-work retrospective, is a caffeinated ten-minute-long abstraction, its jitterbugging lines and grids of circles created by applying Letraset to film stock and adding red and blue colour filters; the indeterminate bleep-and-hum optical soundtrack, sounding like a monkey messing with a Moog, was discovered on the film when the patterned celluloid received its first playback.

 

Source: Frieze Magazine

 

 

Dresden Dynamo is a film that attempts to abstractly present the limited nature of human senses, the conflicts and subversion. The visuals are dictated by the sound. In spasmodic fits, the images flit between dulled blues and red, oscillating and grinding into each other. Lis Rhodes ingeniously applied patterns of Lettratone and Lettraset stickers to the film reel itself, as to create a film, without a camera. The effect is of industrial psychedelia. The process is titillatingly discordant with a soundscape of white noise and bleeps that tangentially veers towards melody. It reminded me of the neurological condition of synesthesia where stimulation of one sense e.g. the taste of apples, will arouse another e.g. the colour purple.

 

Source: Kollektivnye

 

 

The final print has been achieved through three, seperate, consecutive printings from the original material, on a contact printer. Colour was added, with filters, on the final run. The film is not a sequential piece. It does not develop crescendos. It creates the illusion of spatial depth from essentially, flat, graphic, raw material. (Tim Bruce, London Filmmakers Co-op Catalogue 1993)

 

Source: LUX

 

 

Dresden Dynamo from 1972 is a wonderfully rich archetypal ocular pleasure feast, a psychedelic trip of a film. No camera was used, instead marks were made directly onto the film, and the optical track mechanically reads a sound in response. This is used to make a material connection between seeing and hearing, inducing for the viewer a hypnotic state of visual indulgence.

 

Source: The List

 

 

Dresden Dynamo, stripes, london, flicker / strobe, Film

Reading

Film as Film: Formal Experiment in Film 1910-1975 (1979) is a catalogue of an exhibition held at the Hayward Gallery in London from 3 May until 17 June 1979 on rare, essential and controversial avant-garde film history.

Sons et Lumières (2004) – A History of Sound in the Art of the 20th Century (in French) by Marcella Lista and Sophie Duplaix published by the Centre Pompidou for the excellent Paris exhibition in September 2004 until January 2005.


Curated by the Pompidou’s Sophie Duplaix with the Louvre’s Marcella Lista, the show required a good three or four hours to absorb, with its bombardment of sensory and intellectual input, including painting, sound sculpture, sound/light automata, film and video, and room-size installations. (Frieze Magazine)

 

SEE ALSO

Radio Dada (2008) by Rosa Menkman. She turned a high-end camera on a screen that was showing, in real time, what she was filming, creating a feedback loop. Then she glitched the video by changing its format and subsequently exporting it into animated gifs. She sent the file to Extraboy, who composed music for the video. (Rosa Menkman)

Paul Sharits (2008) edited by Yann Beauvais. Known primarily for his experimental cinema and pictorial works, Paul Sharits developed an oeuvre that evolved around two central themes: one, closely related to music and the world of abstraction, the other, within the psychological and emotional arena of the figurative. This complete monograph, drawn from a recent exhibition, explores the connections between these two practices, and in addition provides a general introduction to a remarkable body of work. Illustrated throughout, the monograph also includes several essays, texts by Paul Sharits and interviews. (les presses du réel)

Mark Fell has been one of the leading innovators in the fields of experimental electronic music and sound art. Combining interests in experimental music, contemporary art, computer technology and philosophy, his work has been performed and exhibited internationally to wide critical acclaim. Mark Fell is one half of snd. (Mark Fell)

Semiconductor make moving image works which reveal our physical world in flux; cities in motion, shifting landscapes and systems in chaos. Since 1999 UK artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt have worked with digital animation to transcend the constraints of time, scale and natural forces; they explore the world beyond human experience, questioning our very existence. (FatCat Records)

Shutter Interface (1975) by Paul Sharits is a hypnotic work a quartet of 16mm projectors stand, figure-like, side by side on imposing pedestals facing a long wall. Four looped films of varying lengths are unspooled and respooled in jewel-like swathes of colour interspersed with single black frames, creating the flicker effect Paul Sharits was the first to explore in colour films. (Frieze Magazine)