Frau im Mond
Frau im Mond applies the formal language of a 1929 silent film to a video game film from 2012. The set of Fritz Lang’s film is rebuilt in 3D, and the protagonist moves through it in sync with the original.
2012 Games Table
Films have moved out of the cinema halls they once dominated and into our homes, televisions, laptops and phones. Video game films (machinima) are the most digital films of all: whole film sets can be downloaded as maps and walked through on your own computer. I transferred this one onto a roll of 16 mm black-and-white film, so code becomes a finished artistic object.
A game engine let me approach a monumental film of the late 1920s. At the same time I tried to shed the usual look of a video game (polygon worlds, endless depth of field, pixelated textures) and change the first impression through the haptic quality of the old. The colours and the noise of the game are gone; one soundtrack accompanies both films.
The two films run as a parallel projection: a computer program switches on the projector and plays the digital film at the same moment. The machinima, a very young form of cinema, stands as an equal beside one of the last big silent-film productions.
Shown in an exhibition of the Digital Art department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and included in the book reset the apparatus.