The experience of watching an entirely silent film ranges from irritation to dreamlike abstraction. The noises from the projector and the coughing of the neighbour create a distance that may be further removed than any Brechtian Verfremdung. What a relief when we hear music, when the film wakes up to the material world of film sound. RenŽ Clair writes about sound film: It has conquered the world of voices, but it has lost the world of dreams. Signifikantenstadl is a piece that plays with the different perceptions of film sound, technical vs. atmospheric, diegetic vs. extra-diegetic, psychic vs. material, natural vs. artificial. It combines purely synthesized sound with cinematic quotes from half-forgotten films. The literature of writing code is assembled with frozen moments of filmic narrative, creating an ambiguity between distant and near.
back to Signifikantenstadl For more information on live coding, see toplap