- Venue
- Kunst-Werke Berlin e.V.
- Location
- Germany
Ticket bought, stub removed by usher.
Walk into the room and find your allotted seat. Fold down the chair, remove your coat, turn of your phone and relax.
Fix your eyes on the screen and your ears on the sonic landscape, let yourself be absorbed into the moving images projected in front of you.
Credits. Stand up, gather your possessions and leave. Smoke. Find the bar. Go home. Discuss what happened. Return to reality.
The experience is complete.
Thus is our expectation of an encounter with the cinematic. You get what you paid for, the movie is watched from start to finish, in its entirety. The film is elevated by its staging on the big screen, removed from the audience and approaching a status of being revered. What if this passive relationship between film and viewer is affected? What if the viewer has to become active to see the film?
‘Vorspannkino’ consists of four rooms, each showing a varying number of introductions to films. Translated as ‘Cinema of Titles’, Vorspanniko is two things. It is a celebration of the work of the title director, people such as Saul Bass who saw the potential for working with these required sequences at the start of a feature films. These often overlooked sequences can become significant as a way of introducing a theme, setting a scene or creating a necessary tension within the audience whilst performing their primary role of displaying the main credits of the production. Vorspannkino is also a considered curatorial work by Sussanne Pfeffer, questioning the way we encounter these sequences, as a passive or an active viewer.
The intro’s are significant to the show, however the inclusion of over 50 titles would require an incredibly substantial consideration in order to review them as their own entity, it is not their individual merits that are important, but the collective statement; their accumulated duration is that of a feature length production. It is not the intention of this review to go into detail around any of these sequences in themselves, but to consider the curatorial decisions. It would seem that considering this show as a curatorial project rather than a curated exhibition of works is far more appropriate to its nature.
The first room is a cinema. There are fold down seats, and a big screen a distance away; the viewer is sat on a balcony having paid entry at the box office. The films play one after the other on a continuous loop. We are observers, involved only by our choice to be present, a passive involvement. The use of the continuous loop does detract from the cinematic experience, as much as we have a programme of the films that will be shown and as so are aware of where we are within the programme at all times, this perhaps only adds to the white space mentality of leaving when you arrive back at the point you arrived.
There is no end and no beginning to the programme, instead a succession of beginnings which in turn lead you to the point where the main action begins, cutting the viewer off from the meat of the production. This could be viewed as a constant disappointment comparable to the setting of the scene demonstrated in ‘The Dubliners’, but the pace of the programme means that there is never a break in the visual or sonic landscape. Does this inhibit the cinematic context?
Room two is a surprise. This time the intros are displayed on separate screens, one at a time, around the room. There are 10 screens, each with its own projector and speakers. The action moves around the room reflecting the nature of the films; Bullitt, Raging bull and Bond play side by side. There are no chairs here, instead the viewer finds his place on the floor, leaning against a pillar in front of the film currently playing. Then he has to move. Or does he? As the visual moves, must the viewer follow? He is offered a decision. How important is it to see the footage face on, as in a cinema? After all, this is not that environment.
Room three dispels expectations again. This time each film has its own screen in a different location, you can walk through them. Again, there is one playing at a time, but not necessarily in the order of the room. You must move if you want to see each piece, your view is otherwise hindered. Each intro here is either an animation or comedic, Barbarella and the Pink Panther, Catch me if you Can and the Rocky Horror Show. The room becomes playful, the viewer becomes more active. The feeling is of a demonstration of the move from cinema screen to expanded cinema, a challenge to the viewer to understand how they observe.
Finally, the fourth room consists of horror movies, from Se7en to Nekromantic. There is a red velvet drape over the door, however it is only noticeable as you leave. The floor is covered in thick sponge, disorientating the walk on, but comfortable to lie. The screens are displayed in a similar way to room two, except this time one screen faces another. The viewer is again asked whether they want to move to view each film, but settled on the comfortable foam, the decision is harder. I am certain that this room should feel disorientating and sinister and until you sit or lie it does; it’s easy to become comfortable. Perhaps there is a deeper, ‘Funny Games’- esque consideration of how comfortable we are viewing violence on the big screen, removed from its consequences, the film goer as voyeur.
I can see what Sussanne Pfeffer has tried to achieve. She has considered the way we watch movies. We are not observing high art, but visual culture. The films span the decades from when the moving image was new and exciting to our present day image saturated culture. It is worth trying to refresh how we look at things, a consideration perhaps of Gene Youngbloods ideas of expanded cinema, but I am not convinced this show really achieves this. I am disappointed. Room three seems successful, it is playful, it is like a walk through cinema; it works. Otherwise, the curation seems to stop short of achieving the apparent aims. Room four should feel more sinister, room one doesn’t quite capture the cinematic experience. But then maybe it is not about demonstrating a critical idea, but a challenge to me, the viewer, to question how I view cinema. How long will I stay if I don’t have to?
