transistor (2000)

Synopsis

transistor shows an excellent model for a direct coupling of sound and image. Accompanied by short, choppy segments of noise fragments, geometric gridworks appear with equal abruptness, as in a visual staccato: empty picture frames, lines and planes in varying intensities, light, semi-light, bold, extra-bold, etc. This not only places a visual matrix underneath the rasping, eruptive sound as a foundation, it also reveals the underlying matrix-like quality, the locking function in the digital culture as the interface at which graphic and acoustic elements have always overlapped. If structural film traditionally proceeded from the assumption that the visible world could be reduced to a geometric and conceptual image, Schwentner re-contextualizes such reduction processes: A kind of a dynamic structural model of an electronic culture which is crossing the genre is made visible. (Christian Höller)