Sonic Cinema: The Films of Peter Tscherkassky
Celebrating the release of “Dirk Schaefer : Peter Tscherkassky, All the Soundtracks (2005–2021)” by purge.xxx, Sonic Cinema presents Peter Tscherkassky & Dirk Schaefer’s four collaborations to date: Train Again (2021); The Exquisite Corpus (2015); Coming Attractions (2010); Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (2005); as well as Tscherkassky’s classic of avant-garde cinema Outer Space (1999).
All films will be projected in their original 35mm format. We’re thrilled to welcome Tscherkassky’s composer and sound designer Dirk Schaefer to Cafe OTO for a discussion with Stanley Schtinter (purge.xxx).
The films of Peter Tscherkassky have played a central role in the international reawakening of interest in avant-garde film. At the turn from a photographic to a digital culture of moving images, his work follows in the footsteps of Austrian masters Kurt Kren, Peter Kubelka, and Ernst Schmidt Jr. to create a thrilling filmic language that engages psychoanalysis and semiotics whilst exploring the physicality of the medium and its potential to overwhelm both visually and sonically. Tscherkassky’s working method – painstakingly hand printing found-footage material frame-by-frame in the darkroom – gives his films a deeply materialist sensibility, yet through the flickering fragments they also maintain cinema’s ability to shock and thrill. Dirk Schaefer’s sound design, which is intrinsically coupled to Tscherkassky’s images, constantly surprises with its chopped speech, repetitive musical refrains, arrhythmic noises, progressive buzzing and deep silences.
Running Order
Outer Space (Peter Tscherkassky, 1999, 10 min, 35mm)*
Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (Peter Tscherkassky, 2005, 17 min, 35mm) **
Coming Attractions (Peter Tscherkassky, 2010, 25’10 min, 35mm)**
The Exquisite Corpus (Peter Tscherkassky, 2015, 19 min, 35mm) **
*soundtrack by Peter Tscherkassky
**soundtrack by Dirk Schaefer
Masterclass With Dirk Schaefer
We’re thrilled to announce that Dirk Shaefer will give a unique masterclass on his practice and methodologies prior to this screening on 24 October 2021, 11am at IKLECTIK. Full details and booking here.
Programmed by Oliver Dickens. Oliver would like to thank Café OTO, the Austrian Cultural Forum London, the Goethe-Institut, Sixpackfilm, purge.xxx and Andy Jenkin for their generous support for this programme.