Experience a sense of being in the world, in a specific space and time. Including Jeanne Liotta’s recordings of the ionosphere and Walter Ruttmann’s radical 35mm precursor to musique concrète.

This programme is collected around the theme of location, or landscape and a few examples of how it can been interpreted in sound and image.

A couple of good examples here might be:

Baume im Herbst, by Kurt Kren. Kren takes a serialist approach to editing inter-cuts multiple black and white footage of trees until they become a flickering, abstract brooding on the landscape. At the same time he scratches directly onto the films optical soundtrack, creating an uncanny and equally brooding rustle and thunder. Image moves from concrete/ real to abstract, sound in the opposite direction.

Weekend, by Walter Ruttmann. Ruttmann spent one weekend during 1930 in Berlin, documenting on 35mm film the city from it finished work on Saturday to starting the next week on Monday morning. While doing so, he never once removed the lens cap, and so treated the 35mm camera as the most sophisticated audio recording device of its time. Weekend removes the visual from our experience, allowing us to focus on the unique qualities of sound itself, and it’s ability to create a narrative just as accomplished as any visual one.

The Coming Race, Dir. Ben Rivers, 5 mins, 16mm

Baume im Herbst, Dir. Kurt Kren, 5 mins, 16mm

Weekend, Dir. Walter Ruttmann, 12 mins, 16mm

What the Water Said 4-6, Dir. David Gatten, 17 mins, 16mm

Observando el Cielo, Dir. Jeanne Liotta, 19 mins, 16mm

Soundtracks, Dir. Guy Sherwin, 9 mins, 16mm

31/75 Asyl, Dir. Kurt Kren, 9 mins, 16mm

Below are online links which you can use for reference. To see the films in their original glory, check with the distributor of the film for their terms and conditions.