Martin Arnold

Blackout

The term “blackout” originally comes from the theater world and refers to an abrupt switching off of the spotlights, which was either used as a dramaturgical effect to emphasize a punchline or simply helped when arranging a scene or changing the scenery. It’s no surprise that it was later adapted for the spaces of the so-called “Lichtspiele” (in German, a synonym for movie theatre). What does it mean when the background is no longer visible? What does a background erasure mean compared to a free-form select of the foreground? And is there a complete erasure of the background at all, or are traces always left behind that can at least be guessed at? – M.A.

In Tinseltown

color, sound, 2:14 loop, 2020

Background Check

color, silent, 2:50 loop

Full Rehearsal

In a later group of short film loops such as Soft Palate (2010) and Whistle Stop (2014),[5] Arnold seems to discover psychoanalytic underbellies in the most popular form of post-war family entertainment, animation, and its most iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse (using two of Mickey's shorts, one of them Mickey's Delayed Date), Tom And Jerry, Daffy Duck (Draftee Daffy) and Goofy (How To Play Golf).

Elsewhere

color, sound, 3:00 loop, 2016

Black Holes

cel animation, repetition, and disappearance... color, sound, 5:20 loop, 2015

Whistle Stop

"It had to be me."

Tooth Eruption

Recomposing teeth gestures.

20 Little Films

Each year since 1995, the Viennale has asked a great, international director to make his or her own personal contribution to the festival: a contribution in the form of a small, approximately one-minute film, which is used as a kind of introduction to the festival. The concept of this "little films" (as Jonas Mekas once called them) is more to create a short, autonomous work, a cinematic moment that stands alone and for nothing and no-one else. Over the years this has resulted in a series of absolutely unique, exceptional works. Each director has created his/her own cinematic world between home movie and political essay, music film and minimal étude, mysterious story and radical, aesthetic abstraction on those little films, that will now be shown together for the first time on the occasion of the Viennale’s great 50th anniversary, premiering at the Locarno Film Festival.

Haunted House

Parts of Mickey Mouse floating in a Haunted House

Haunted House

Parts of Mickey Mouse floating in a Haunted House

Self Control

Parts of a comic strip are animated.

Self Control

Parts of a comic strip are animated.

Shadow Cuts

In a later group of short film loops such as Soft Palate (2010) and Whistle Stop (2014), Arnold seems to discover psychoanalytic underbellies in the most popular form of post-war family entertainment, animation, and its most iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse (using two of Mickey's shorts, one of them Mickey's Delayed Date), Tom And Jerry, Daffy Duck (Draftee Daffy) and Goofy (How To Play Golf).

Shadow Cuts

In a later group of short film loops such as Soft Palate (2010) and Whistle Stop (2014), Arnold seems to discover psychoanalytic underbellies in the most popular form of post-war family entertainment, animation, and its most iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse (using two of Mickey's shorts, one of them Mickey's Delayed Date), Tom And Jerry, Daffy Duck (Draftee Daffy) and Goofy (How To Play Golf).

Soft Palate

Body parts of a cartoon character.

Soft Palate

Body parts of a cartoon character.

Jeanne Marie Renée

A 12-hour installation piece comprising slowed-down footage of Renée Jeanne Falconetti in Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.

Deanimated: The Invisible Ghost

This piece was designed as an installation piece for projection as a 60-minute loop in gallery spaces. Deanimated is literally displaced from the theater environment typical of film spectatorship, slightly blurring the boundaries between the spaces of projection and reception. "Deanimated: The Invisible Ghost," is based on the 1941 horror film "The Invisible Ghost" with the lead actors Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young, and John McGuire. In "Deanimated" the actors are gradually eliminated and thus the narrative loses its coherence. What remains are backgrounds, erratic camera movements that seem to move without focus throughout the room, capturing ghostly changes in light and shadows. In this project, Arnold asks fundamental philosophical questions about human existence and presence in absence. Although the actors are missing, they leave behind traces (such as smashing bullets together, dust stirring up …) and are experienced precisely in their absence as a ghostly, unreal present.

Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy

In a deconstruction of classic Hollywood codes, using repetitive single frame images, the re-editing of teenager movies produces an intense Oedipal drama.

Psycho/Viennale Spot

Rendering and composing a fragment from the shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock´s Psycho anew with the possibilities of digital retouching

Don't - Der Österreichfilm

Found footage sequences from various obscure campy Austrian films assembled together with a very dark disturbing soundtrack.

Passage à l'Acte

An avant-garde sonic and visual reediting of a short clip from the classic 1962 film "To Kill a Mockingbird".

Jesus Walking on Screen

A short found footage trailer made for a film program dedicated to the depiction of Jesus in cinema.

Kunstraum Remise

A short segment of film is played with musical backing at various speeds for a jarring effect.

Pièce touchée

Arnold's source material is a piece of footage from the 1950s, eighteen seconds long and very typical for the period. A quiet take: A living room, a woman in an armchair. Her husband opens the door, kisses her, then moves out of the picture accompanied by a camera pan, his wife follows after him. In Arnold's film the sequence takes 16 minutes. Cadre by cadre, it becomes an exciting tango of movements. But Pièce Touchée is more than just a matter of forms; The reflections, distortions and delays it displays challenge cinema's stable system of space and time.