TOSHIO MATSUMOTO ATMAN (1975)

Director: Toshio Matsumoto

Year: 1975

Time: 12 mins

Music: Toshi Ichiyanagi

Eye of Sound: Atman is a Sanskrit term signifying something similar to self or soul. Yet such a self implies a whole range of metaphysical and anthropological dimensions unknown in Western languages and, therefore, Western intellectual traditions. It's an ambivalent concept denoting two distinguishable, but not opposed, realms of being: the individual self and the cosmic self. The degree to which these two levels of existence can be assimilated differs according to each school of thought or sectarian line. As an essential concept in Hinduism, the term is present in all modern Indian languages, but it's also a central tenet in several Buddhist strands and other religious configurations in the East. Matsumoto's 1975 short Atman is a rigorous and entrancing technical exercise whose "meaning" can only be hinted at by its title. A masked human figure is standing on an open landscape. The camera(s?) continuously encircle(s) the figure, in an anti-clockwise movement, approaching and abandoning the figure in stop-motion steps and varying, sometimes vertiginous, speed. Ichiyanagi, a regular collaborator of Matsumoto, offers an excellent, richly textured electronic score that is essential in sustaining interest in this constant merry-go-round: occasional bursts of of rhythmic mayhem, brilliantly synched with the picture's stop-motion, give way to swarms of orbital noise and back again. The masked man could well stand for the relation between the two levels of self implied in the film title, but the significance of this particular horned mask can only be explored by someone versed in Japanese iconography. But fear not: with or without a clear meaning, Atman is a magnificent exercise in cinematic vertigo, an outstanding film in an outstanding filmography.

http://rapidshare.com/files/401187297/atman.avi.001

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PIERRE HÉBERT AROUND PERCEPTION (1968)

Director: Pierre Hébert

Year: 1968

Time: 16 mins

Music: Pierre Hébert

Eye of Sound: Canadian animation genius Pierre Hébert started his career with studies on pure shape-driven abstraction and the limits of human perception. Around Perception is a groundbreaking experiment on computer-based animation, consisting of 11 audiovisual events designed to baffle cognition and unrest comfortable notions of reality. Unlike most of his later films, Hébert chose not to collaborate with top-notch experimental musicians and created the soundtrack himself. In this, he followed a method also used by Norman McLaren: to scratch sound directly onto the film itself. The relation between sound and picture, however, is not as symbiotic as in McLaren's Synchromy: although there are organic reactions between the two domains, one is not a direct translation of the other. This, of course, need not be seen as a weakness. Indeed, with its fast-paced changes of color and geometrical patterns, and the employment of Columbia-like richly crafted electronic tones, Around Perception works as a tremendously hallucinatory exercise in trompe l'oeil (and l'oreille) techniques. Or, as stated by Hébert himself at the beginning of the film, an exercise "for the mind and against the mind".

http://rapidshare.com/files/381369523/around_perception_-_pierre_hebert.avi

KEN JACOBS CELESTIAL SUBWAY LINES/SALVAGING NOISE (2004)

Director: Ken Jacobs

Year: 2004

Time: 67 mins

Music: John Zorn & Ikue Mori

Eye of Sound: Ken Jacobs flows with a sense of history. As a septuagenarian artist, Jacobs is himself a human inscription of history. But it is through his works that this temporal depth goes beyond a youngster's banal recognition of a veteran's memory of things past. Many of his latest films have been exploring the memory of cinema, that insidious instrument that single-handedly defined the 20th century and forever changed our cognitive and mnemonic habits. There is thus something simultaneously paradoxical and redundant in exploring the history of cinema as an art in itself; the memory of memory is more than a meta-exercise in remembering, it is a thrust as twisted and potentially deranging as the tale of the woman who gave birth to herself. Jacobs has been making extensive use of found-footage, but with an unique approach that somehow leaves the integrity of his materials untouched: rarely there's a juxtaposition of sources, and the used footage is given he privilege of standing on its own, distortion and corrosion coming from within the film itself. Another approach has been the use and reinvention of projection machinery that cinema history forgot. The magic lantern, which Jacobs has been developing in the past few years, is a precursor to the slide projector and represents nothing less than the essence of cinema and photography: the capture and projection of light for the creation of visual illusion. With the addition of a hallucinatory stroboscopic effect, Jacobs "invented" the Nervous Magic Lantern, a device which allows him to further complicate our notions of cinema: film here becomes an improvisational material, and the session is indeed a performance as irrepeatable as any other. Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise, selected from four performances, is Jacobs' most notorious exercise with the Lantern simply because it's been released through the renowned NY label Tzadik. John Zorn and Ikue Mori provide a suitable soundtrack for the Lantern's unreal visuals. Dreamy but haunting, these electronic soundscapes add different layers of intensity to an otherwise stable visual input, ranging from destructive industrial noise to distorted vocal samples, concrète recordings and abstract electronic tones. In such circumstances, of course, the soundtrack is highly intrusive and determines much of the understanding of the visual projections. The final result is a tremendously disturbing hallucinatory experience in which the illusion of tridimensional depth is a constant challenge to perception and the eerie soundtrack adds an element of danger and nightmare to what could well be a psychologically neutral event. Watch this at your own risk, but do watch it.

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KEN VANDERMARK RESONANCE PROJECT LIVE IN ZAPOROZHYE 2009

Year: 2009

Time: 75 mins

Music

Ken Vandermark - reeds

Dave Rempis - saxes

Steve Swell - trombone

Tim Daisy - drums

Michael Zerang - percussion

Mark Tokar - bass

Waclaw Zimpel - reeds

Mikolaj Trzaska - reeds

Per-Ake Holmlander - tuba

Magnus Broo - trumpet

Eye of Sound: Vandermark's popularity outside the usual circle of modern jazz consumers is something of a mystery. Unlike Zorn, Vandermark never produced a single record that could attract surf guitar, thrash, klezmer, or pan-music lovers. His work has been tightly focused and circumscribed and yet, despite his uncompromising stance, his name remains as one of the most popular in modern jazz music. The Resonance tentet project, although fairly accessible for KV's standards, will not provide any answers. The compositions seems to draw inspiration from a desire to contrast two worlds that we all tend to think of as opposite: the so-called "free jazz" tradition, and the classic big band heritage, perhaps most notably in its suite form (cf. The Duke). Pushing forward the method of knitting together different structures for improvisation, KV's Resonance compositions are based on "modular pieces" - modules that can be rearranged and reassembled for a given performance, thus extending possibilities on the eternal struggle between the call for structure and the need for ample improvisation room. This concert features the tentet in top shape, building muscular but lyrical sound-cascades. Although dominated by a strong horn section, rhythms are never swallowed by its frenzy, Zerang and Tolkar being given the responsibility to keep the locomotion swinging and palatable. The result is an intense but delicate music, powerful but never inform, warm but always aloof from the easy, cheesy, boring antics of mainstream jazz. Still, despite this odd combination of attributes, there's no clue as to the aforementioned KV mystery.

http://rapidshare.com/files/400094191/vanderres.mkv.001

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STEFAN KUSHIMA & PHILIPPE GERLACH CURRENT SHOT 01 (2007)

Director: Stefan Kushima & Philippe Gerlach

Year: 2007

Time: 15 mins

Music: Stefan Kushima & Phillipe Gerlach

Eye of Sound: A description of this piece by Austrian duo Kushima & Gerlach must either be a complete spoiler or float through words in such an oblique manner as to render it unintelligible for anyone who hasn't seen the film. Better take the first one, or both. Beautiful drone music hums in the air; a solid, rich hum, slowly evolving into something which is none other than itself. The picture should be read in the same way. Five people, against the sun, on an empty street. Nothing seems to move. But, though our weak cognitive apparatus hasn't warned us, something has indeed moved: at least the shadows have. Slowly we understand that the silhouettes are not motionless; there is motion, plenty of it, but barely perceptible except for the shadow that betrays a body's existence under the sun. And the faces we can't see are slowly turning towards us. As Alexandra Seibel pointed out, all movement is here an a posteriori recognition; just like you are said to ignore that you were happy till you turn sour, motion can be only apprehended once it's gone. But it's not really gone, and it is this constant rift between object and cognition, past and present, that makes Current Shot 01 a thrilling experience to be repeated frequently.

http://rapidshare.com/files/399715166/Current_Shot_01__2007_.avi

WALTER VERDIN A MELODY (1984)

Director: Walter Verdin

Year: 1984

Time: 6 mins

Music: Walter Verdin

Eye of Sound: This early work by Belgian creative thunderstorm Walter Verdin may scare away usual customers of the Sound of Eye project because of the perhaps unappealing aspect of the screen caps. If this happens, well, it is maybe an unfortunate consequence of the current dictatorship of picture glitter and the sad oblivion of video as it was understood in the 80s. Verdin seems to devote much of his time today to video-installations and the uneasy relationship between image and dance/theatre; he also continues to explore the vicious concubinage of picture and sound, as we was doing in the early 80s under the banner of video-art. In this work, Verdin slowly discloses a simple melody while unveiling the face of a woman on the screen. The idea is simple but effective: throughout the film, we are presented with several "cells" in which parts of the woman's face are hidden by dark stripes; each of these "cells" simulates a connection with a particular musical note, so that as the melody progresses with the accumulation of notes, the face is gradually revealed without the veil. There is something strangely beautiful and enticing about this simple process; I can't quite put my finger on it, but something tells me it's the way in which the connection between Sound and Eye is stripped down to such an elemental state.

http://rapidshare.com/files/399194227/walter_verdin-a_melody.avi

ED VAN DER ELSKEN KAREL APPEL, COMPOSER (1961)

Director: Ed van der Elsken

Year: 1961

Time: 5 mins

Music: Karel Appel & Frits Weiland

Eye of Sound: This short film was shot when notorious Dutch painter Karel Appel, a member of the avantgarde group CoBrA, was preparing a soundtrack for Jan Vrijman's documentary on Appel himself. Appel is seen receiving the assistance of Frits Weiland, who's been also an important name in Dutch painting and filmmaking but whose musical credentials are far more solid that his colleague's; Weiland's electronic and tape works for the Utrecht Sonologie Institute are essential episodes in the history of modern European music, although his renown failed to move beyond a close circle of specialists. As far as my sources go, this was Appel's only "official" experiment with music, and not much attention is actually paid to the soundtrack's composition. What Van der Elsken offers us is a rather short portrait of an artist and of an era when such multidisciplinary indiscipline was actually encouraged and not frowned upon. There is apparently a larger version around, so this can be seen as a teaser.

http://rapidshare.com/files/398816573/karelappel.avi

JOHN CAGE & HENNING LOHNER ONE11 WITH 103 (1992)

Directors: John Cage & Henning Lohner

Year: 1992

Time: 93 mins

Music: John Cage

Eye of Sound: Cage's only feature film is much more than a mere cinematic adventure by someone versed in other arts; it is a visual extension of the principles he applied to his musical pieces and is conceptually coherent with his body of work. The title it self refers to a chronological order in Cage's repertoire: it is the 11th composition that Cage wrote for a single performer. The performer is, in this case, the camera. But this is not a mere "the medium is the medium" prank. Free of the burden of meaning, the film consists of multiple complex chance-operations (well documented in the previous post) by which light and, therefore, darkness are given full protagonism in front of the camera. No room is empty, Cage said, and (in a fairly conventional manner) the interplay of these two actors can be seen, first and foremost, as an exploration of the existing spatial dimensions in a given room. Emptiness is an essential part of Cage's thought and, much like in his famous 4:33,  it is here evoked as a means of revealing the incommensurable fullness of an empty space. Inspired by the I-Ching, chance is again accepted - within some constraints - as the driving force behind the creative act: camera movements, lighting events and editing were all determined by random operations controlled by the decisions of the workers in song. The accompanying musical piece, 103, is itself based on chance operations, and its density and eventfulness point to fullness of an empty room as seen on the screen. Here performed by the WDR Orchestra of Koln, the piece ranges from solos, duos and trios to mass orchestral soundwalls, and is divided, like the film, in 17 parts - although there is no direct relation between the two realities. Many languages and cultures acknowledge the irreality of emptiness and open up space to conceptual dimensions hardly graspable by Westernized thought. Much of Cage's work has explored similar ideas and, while One11 is certainly one of the most accomplished and beautiful exercises in his repertoire, it can also be said be seen as the most lucid and transparent demonstration of its conceptual and philosophical principles. A rare sense of timelessness emerges from these plays of light, and the film's pristine beauty can surely entrance anyone not interested or learned in Cage theory. And that's probably the warmest praise one can offer to One11: that it is a masterpiece, regardless of its putative author and theoretical background.

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HENNING LOHNER THE MAKING OF ONE11 (1992)

Director: Henning Lohner

Year: 1992

Time: 43 mins

Music: John Cage

Eye of Sound: Some sceptics will say that it is more interesting to read about John Cage than it is to actually engage with his body of work. Although I would not endorse this point of view,  I understand its rationale and I believe that Cage would himself feel comfortable with it. Part of that position can be understood from a de-authorized perspective: just like mythology comprises, in the words of Lévi-Strauss, both the actual telling of the myth and the exegetical apparatus offered by the scholar analyst - his interpretation being an internal extension of the myth itself -, so too the growing body of reflections on Cage's thought and work can be seen as a natural flourishing of some of the seeds spread by he author in the fertile field of 20th century art. This fascinating documentary offers a detailed insight into the making of Cage's sole feature film, One11, revealing both its technically exhausting complexities and its "soft-core" theoretical and philosophical underpinnings. Narrated by Joan LaBarbara, the film becomes a truly essential part of the One11 experience, "just like a man cannot be said to exist until he is completed by his grandson".

 

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PETER METTLER BALIFILM (1997)

Director: Peter Metler

Year: 1997

Time: 29 mins

Music

Evergreen Club Gamelan Ensemble

Compositions by Trevor Tereski,  Andrew Timar &  ECGE

Eye of Sound: Like any true love worthy of the name, the Western passion for Bali and the gamelan seems to be everlasting and continually evolving instead of stagnating. Metler's Balifilm works as an openly subjective ethnographic film on the breath and pulses of Hindu Balinese performative arts, forfeiting any simulation of objectivity in the name of aesthetic coherence. Footage of dance rehearsals or shadow puppet performances is merged with images of religious sculptures, agricultural work or the island's idyllic scenery. The film's soundtrack also abandons any semblance of "authenticity", despite its essential congruence with Balinese musical traditions. Played live during a projection of the film, the music expands earlier works by Western composers who aim at a reinterpretation of gamelan rhythmic and melodic structures in a dangerous, but successful, attempt to avoid redundant emulation (as in most American gamelan ensembles), new age exoticism (as in works like Andre Jaume's and many others) or even the noble tradition of avantgarde composers who strip Balinese music of its common, outward elements to explore dimensions that are unthinkable within the realm of local processes (such as Cage's Sonatas or some works by Philip Corner). The end result is a hypnotic work bordering on, but never accommodating, the conventions of travelogue, documentary and experimental film.

http://rapidshare.com/files/397482620/Balifilm.mkv.001

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SHIRLEY CLARKE BRIDGES-GO-ROUND (1958)

Director: Shirley Clarke

Year: 1958

Time: 8 mins

Music

Teo Macero

Louis & Bebe Barron

Eye of Sound: Produced with leftover material from a project purporting to document American landscapes, Bridges-Go-Round is a seminal exercise in montage and visual abstraction, with the cityscapes of NY working again as luminous background. Due to copyright/copywrong issues, Clarke commissioned two different soundtracks for the film, here presented in sequence, thus providing spectators with an excellent display of the all-intrusive power of sound in the perception of images: the same set of visual material is radically transformed with the simple addition of a  different soundtrack. The first score is offered by a Teo Macero formation which remains unidentified but is highly reminiscent of some later works by George Lewis and, in a more oblique way, his collaborations with Miles Davis. The second soundtrack comes from the machines of the Barrons, well-known for their score in the sci-fi classic Forbidden Plantet. Despite their enormous differences, and the contrasting effect they have on the screen, the end result of the two scores is uncannily similar: Macero's composition (which, despite the presence of "jazz instruments" cannot be called jazzy in any manner) renders the superimposed bridges and buildings of NY the same alien glitter lent by the more or less "conventional" cavernous bleeps of the Barrons' electronic score.

 

http://rapidshare.com/files/397348877/bridges.avi

DARIUSZ KOWALSKI ORTEM (2004)

Director: Dariusz Kowalski

Year: 2004

Time: 20 mins

Music: Stefan Németh

Eye of Sound: Ortem, or Metro read backwards, is one of the finest examples of Kowalski's permanent engagement with the visual study of non-places. Marc Augé coined the term to denote physical spaces devoid of relational, historical and identity traits: airports, highways, supermarkets, gas stations, etc. But these places do have relational, historical and identitary significance: just consider the lovers who part at the airport, or the family whose relative has been killed in a highway, and we are faced with strong social, historical and individual constructions of place and memory. In Ortem, Kowalski tries to explore the logic of the perception of space and time in a place which claims to be, he argues, nothing but an intersection in a traffic network or a bridge between different intersections. Traveling speed, perceived mostly by visual processes, poses specific questions about the cognition of time and space, as there is little to recognize in a subway tunnel. Time is thus bent in strange ways, and perhaps it could be argued, with some qualifications, that the time connecting two points in this place is some sort of non-time. As Kowalski argues, the metro station is, on the other hand, a direct reflection of cinema's dominance over 20th century thought: all things are aligned toward a vanishing point. But, as in Xenon's paradox, these points never lead to an end, and so the entire space is beyond intellection, eternally ungraspable. Stefan Németh's soundtrack adds to this sense of elusiveness, subtly merging field recordings and laptop soundscapes (fashionably labelled today as "microsound") but hardly ever trying to use sound as an illustration for the visual. The relation between sound and picture remains baffling as an initially apparent sonic topography of the subway gives way to less direct connections, further juggling memory and perception. A truly fascinating work.

http://rapidshare.com/files/395385586/ortem.avi.001

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WILLIAM BASINSKI DISINTEGRATION LOOPS 1.1 (2001)

Director: William Basinski

Year: 2001

Time: 62 mins

Music: William Basinski

Eye of Sound: Known for his melancholic brand of drone music, Basinski offers in this film a rare opportunity: to watch the 9/11 events from a different perspective than the one presented and repeated ad nauseam by the media. An immobile camera captures a dark cloud of smoke covering the city as dusk breaks in and gives in to the first post-9/11 night, supported by the slow evolution of Basinki's dronescapes. Basinski describes the musical piece, composed from materials recorded in 1982, as a fragment of "American pastoralia, lost youth, and paradise lost". As day progresses, the melancholic tone of these carefully integrated loops is gradually swept over by grimmer colors, eventually leaving the landscape with an almost emotionally neutral resonance - perhaps a reflection of the unfolding of "lost youth". Even more dramatic and grotesque events would follow that day, as it is known, but its media-oriented nature and symbolic richness makes it the most important episode in modern history since the (alleged) landing on the moon. Many films explored the potential of the 9/11 event, with different degrees of success, but certainly none as haunting and beautiful as this one.

http://rapidshare.com/files/386822145/disintegration.part1.rar

http://rapidshare.com/files/386822138/disintegration.part2.rar

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http://rapidshare.com/files/386822118/disintegration.part4.rar

PHILIPPE GRAMMATICOPOULOS THE REGULATOR (2004)

Director: Philippe Grammaticopoulos

Year: 2004

Time: 16 mins

Music: Ivo Malec

Eye of Sound: Just like any sane religion must project a golden era back in the past and label the present as  a barbaric, devilish or immoral period in the scale of time, so any sane reflection about the future must be grim and dystopian at best. Sci-fi and utopian literature have many traits in common. One of them is the simple fact that a narrative needs an imbalance, a crack in the system, to evolve. A most relevant one is the fact that, just like anthropology goes to distant places to consider vices and virtues of the homeland, utopian and sci-fi frameworks are most aptly used as pretexts to reflect on the conditions of the present. French animator Grammaticopoulos has been exploring some of these links in his career, constructing distant universes that turn out to be too familiar.  The Regulator tells the tale of a couple who ventures into a supermarket to buy parts from which to build a baby: they happily wonder through the aisles selecting arms, legs, heads, eyes - the entire body of "their" progeny. Once selected they hand the task to the technicians and machines in charge - most notably, a giant mechanical vulva that will toss up the newborn. Ivo Malec's typical electrocaoustic soundtrack is efficiently used to underscore the artificial nature of the production line, but its theatrical, almost expressionistic organ sequences are creatively integrated in semi-burlesque scenes. There is always a crack in the system - a ghost in the machine, a chip gone human, an assertion of individuality. The Regulator choses to crack the eugenic machinery where it hurts the most: by damaging the only part of the human body which remains constant throughout one's life, it reinvents the so-called "window of our soul" as an instrument of resistance against industrial, eugenic and capitalist repression.

  

http://rapidshare.com/files/383198611/regulateur.avi