The Real of Reality: Xenorama | Lorenz Potthast and Marcel Bückner

The language of film was made for the cinema. When a film starts and the auditorium gets dark, we forget about the space around us and get into the reality of the film. Here, the montage is a fundamental technique to narrate a story.  We jump from one place to the next and, in doing so, bridge the gap of unnecessary time. The auditorium is a place in which we can lose our customary perception of space and time.

But what happens if we relocate a film to a place where we are aware of our environment? What happens if we think about film as a site-specific narration and a form of augmented reality? When a movie is embedded in a spatial surrounding the montage becomes a disrupting element in an otherwise constant environment.

The spatial film requires a language that takes the environment and the three dimensional projection surface into account. The technology of “Projection Mapping” gives us the opportunity to work accurately and explicitly with spatial structures.

In our talk, we try to re-think common conceptions of film and focus on practical examples of cinematographic aspects outside their common spatial localization. We want to put the theoretical background of cinema into context with a philosophy of site-specific narrations. To illustrate the differences, we will discuss observations and examples from our practical experiences and projects.

Video Documentary:

ZKM | Institute for Visual Media

Camera: Peter Müller
Editing: Frenz Jordt
Live Editing: Martina Rotzal