Gyre

Luminous white, diamond-shaped forms glide from right to left across a jet-black plane in Cinemascope format. Minimal variations in their movement can be seen. The screen gradually lightens, and a roughly hewn wooden structure becomes visible. The light-colored rectangles turn out to be window openings of a log cabin with luminous white interior walls which is swiftly rotating on its axis. Subtle changes in the light and the camera´s distance and angle transform this presumably abstract animation into a concrete setup for a filmic and architectural experiment.

Kämmerer left nothing to chance in this highly produced work: It was filmed in a single sequence shot and no post-production work was done. He constructed a highly complex object that could be made to rotate at various speeds by means of an electric motor. The window openings´ aspect ratio is 4:3 – that of a conventional video or TV picture – while the walls are configured in three different cinematic widescreen formats. A few precisely employed effects add confusing details: While the cabin´s exterior is polygonous, the interior is cubic, and the luminous white, sterile interior and the roughly hewn facade represent an odd contrast. A door can be seen in an otherwise empty room through the frameless window, though there´s no corresponding opening on the facade. As there is no visible background to provide a reference, the object´s dimensions remain uncertain.

The film´s silent, but not without sound. Kämmerer copied an empty soundtrack onto his reel of film. This produces barely audible noise which becomes louder every time a print is screened.

(Norbert Pfaffenbichler)


White and black areas flow past. Pause. Space is created in repetition, that isn’t really repetition, because its presentation and experience of it alters subtly each time. Something is rotating, but the direction isn’t immediately obvious. From the darkness we peer through passing windows into a brightly lit empty room, the architecture of which remains enigmatic until the end. As time passes the exterior also surprisingly gains contours.

(Thomas Korschil)