void.seqz 5

The number 5 in the title indicates that this computer animation is part of a series. [n:ja], aka Annja Krautgasser, worked with a special script originally developed for audiovisual performances. What all the works in the Void series have in common is that they are in black and white with simple geometric shapes providing the basis for computer-aided formal studies. [n:ja] followed a strategy that media theorist Lev Manovich called the "paradigm of complexity" in contemporary media art.

Annja Krautgasser uses the medium of video in this work to document a unique, unpredictable and non-repeatable digital process of image generation.

void.seqz 5 begins with an empty white space. Gradually short black lines enter it from all sides, leaving behind fine traces. The lines constantly change direction in a seemingly random manner, overlap and fill the picture almost organically. The animation is guided by an off-center counter, which assigns each frame a number, from 0 to 100. At its conclusion the graphic stands still for a few seconds to indicate the completion of the autogenerated drawing.

The soundtrack by Martin Siewert, fragile at the beginning, develops parallel to the visual level. As the amount of blackness in the picture increases, so does the volume and density of the suggestive electronic soundtrack.

(Norbert Pfaffenbichler)

Translation: Steve Wilder


... In her media installation Void.seqz 5 Annja Krautgasser works with a specific script she originally developed for audiovisual performances. The computer animation shows an initially white surface. Short black lines break in from the borders, err in coincidental navigation over the projection surface and compose a growing pattern. In an autogenerative process of accumulative growth and overlap an abstract image emerges and finally freezes, until the process starts all over again and creates a similar but never identical picture. The parallel audio track by composer Martin Siewert unfolds an atmospherical soundscape which swells as the picture evolves...

(Martin Beck)