Stewardessen Clip

May Britt Chromy is obviously the star of Stewardessen Clip by sound, performance and video artist Sabine Marte. After beginning at an excessively short distance from May Britt, the abstract black-and-white contrasts, streaks and patterns are gradually revealed to be a closeup of her face. Heavily made-up, piercing saucer-shaped eyes dominate her diva-like expression and a more or less impenetrable smile - possibly exaggeratedly friendly or even arrogant - the most outstanding feature of this emotionally charged projection screen. The visual composition is also synchronous with the repetitive and minimalistic sound structures created by Markus Marte: The face is repeatedly shifted from the right side of the picture´s background to the foreground, where it takes on extremely artificial and even monstrous characteristics in the distortion and rhythmic alternation between close shots and even closer shots. The statement "Ich bin eine Stewardess" ("I am a stewardess") suggests a whisper, and the word "stewardess" echoes, synchronized lip movements making the protagonist seem to be saying them. The voice, obviously that of a female, is repeatedly distorted through variation in its playback speed, broken up and made to sound masculine: "I feel" sounds like "I think" as a result of the acoustic effects, and "I´m gonna show you how you will be able to save your life", the standard phrase employed by all stewardesses, which is also the underlying message in many music videos, becomes a dubious promise in its decomposition. After the genre´s typical three minutes and thirty seconds, this suggestive and memorable flood of sounds and images ends abruptly: "Remember, this is a non-smoking flight".

(Christa Benzer)

Translation: Steve Wilder


The swirling, stuttering black & white grains mix like potions in an eerie video-cauldron surroundet by dark mysterious sounds. Struggling, a face pulls itself out of the chaos to mirror the glare of the audience. Perhaps she wonders, as we do, with whom exactly, is she establishing contact. Akin to an alien encounter, she merely offers her huge, saucerlike eyes and smiles through the shadows of her toothy grin before falling like a waterfall beyond the viewer´s reach.

(Sean Gallagher, 9. Cinematexas Festival 2004)