four stereoscopic video projections,
quadraphonic audio, room installation, digital video.
Documentaion duration: 6:10 min / Films durations: 11:00 min © 1997
Synopsis
KUR is enacted as a dance-poem. The film links ancient Sumerian myth with contemporary research in quantum physics, the roots and the apex of human scientific exploration. KUR requires the entire body as viewing apparatus, actively moving, participating in the film. In it, time is layered into the dimensions of space. The mysteries of the 20th century, the strange occurrences of post-Newtonian physics, are usedin KUR as structural counterpoint to ancient formulas of the unknown. The verbal repetitions characteristic of Sumerian poetry are echoed in the composition of the scenes. The narrative structure follows a looping, spiraling, non-linear path. The viewers move in the center, spin,and choose which screen to watch, which version of time and reality to experience.
KUR was created entirely using blue screen, "virtual" sets, and digital post-processing and is exhibited as four life-size, stereoscopic video projections built into a room, viewed with polarized glasses. The digital processing incorporates unique visualization techniques developed by the artist for this work.
Credits
Concept and Creation
Clea T. Waite
Music Written, Produced and Performed by
Helga Pogatschar
Dance Choreographed and Performed by
Tanja Den Broeder
Gracias Devaraj
Gerlind Schweppe
Videography
Thomas Kutschker
Exhibitions
1997
European Media Art Festival
www.emaf.de/1997/ausstellung
Osnabrück, Germany
1997
'Dream Science '97' Computer Graphics Grand Prix in STEC
Tokyo, Japan
Prizes
1997
Grand Prize winner 'Dream Science '97'
Catalogs & Reviews
European Media Art Festival
Dream Science '97
”Time on Space: Kur, a Four-Dimensional Film“, Bild-Medium-Kunst, 1999.
Spielmann, Yvonne. "Intermedia In Electronic Images",
Leonardo, February 2001, Vol. 34, No. 1, Pgs 55-61
This work was created through fellowships from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany
and the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation
© Clea T. Waite 1997