Wind

"We are mad to be filming the wind; filming the impossible is what’s best in life." The dream of making the wind graspable has stirred artists since time immemorial. Joris Ivens was not the only one fully aware of this futile endeavor. Martin Putz likewise searches the world for people and places of the wind, while mindful of the fact that only things standing in the way of the wind can provide an inkling of its workings. Without the friction and the motion the wind effects, it remains invisible.

The wind told me a song...Science by way of the Beaufort scale registers 13 voices, from calm to hurricane force. But how might the forms and frequencies of air circulation be pictorially described? Framing the wind or the attempt to capture, corral, or trap this force of nature will always remain a quixotic fight against windmills. So, is this a story of defeat? Or is it the story of a wind-catcher who wishes to substantiate the incomprehensible by way of simple as well as complex technologies: in a wind tower, at the beach, in a scientific laboratory with a man-made wind tunnel – or most beautifully, in an open field where the wind seems to create its own trekking map, as led by the hand sketching its path.

One can grasp that which is set in motion by the wind. A crane raising the giant blades of a wind turbine dimensionally recalls the battle of David and Goliath. This scene becomes central to Wind, as does the image from a mesmerizing science film that shows the beating wings of a moth as Thomas Macho's voice explains the paradoxical fact that there is only one constant variable: that of perpetual transformation – namely of the wind which ceaselessly moves all it touches.  

The blind man in Robert Frank's Life Dances On wants to photograph the wind as well. He will never be able to marvel at his picture, but the world's breath is also present in the sheer attempt to transcribe its movement. (Regina Schlagnitweit)

Translation: Eve Heller