4/61 Walls-Positive-Negative and Path

In 4/61 Mauern-Positiv-Negativ und Weg (4/61 Walls-Positive-Negative and Path) Kurt Kren uses slides - photographic planes - which show different surfaces and finishes of a wall, which have been erroded by time. Kren stacks the positives and negatives of these pictures quickly one after the other, so that a moving relief-type structure develops through this combination of "two eyes." A mysterious ambiguous image manifests itself before us, surrounded by all kinds of possible mythological connotations. What is there to see? Is it some secret, magical depiction, which we can not solve; is it a cult cave painting; or landscapes from a bird´ s-eye-view; or could it be satellite pictures from a far off planet; or microscopic examinations of the Turin Shroud? As the continual subject, an external image from a park landscape appears over and over again, and only then takes on spacial dimensions through the busy, sped-up, movements of the people within it. Therefore, without making a big deal out of it Mauern (Walls...) proposes the thesis, that it is motion first of all which allows space to develop, to become important as well as habitable.
(Michael Palm: "Which Way? Drei Pfade durchs Bild-Gebüsch von Kurt Kren," in:(ed.) H. Scheugl, Ex Underground Kurt Kren. Seine Filme, Vienna 1996)


The images switch from positive to negative, a slow change of pattern can be detected. No visible clue enables the viewer to relate this sequence of images to any known natural process. They could be taken from a mudslide or a melting pot. They seem, if anything, just stuff; pure matter. Some filaments appear, delineating a network structure that superimposes itself onto the irregular patches.

(Herbert Hrachovec, In: Mind and Matter: Comparative Approaches towards Complexity)