Focus on Sigfried. A. Fruhauf. Programm 1

FOCUS ON is dedicating a dense programme to Siegfried A. Fruhauf, giving the audience a broad overview of his rich oeuvre spanning 25 years.

Fruhauf is undoubtedly one of the most important representatives of Austrian avant-garde film. The works of this extremely productive film artist, who grew up on a farm in Upper Austria, are multi-layered in the truest sense of the word. He often develops them from found film material, but also draws on other ‘found footage’. For example, a photographic negative from the 19th century stored on a glass plate, as for Vintage Print. Fruhauf then subjects the material to structuring and copying processes, which he describes as essential to his artistic practice.

In 1999, as a student of experimental visual design at the University of Art and Design Linz, Siegfried A. Fruhauf was able to present his film Höhenrausch at the renowned Sundance Film Festival in the USA. Further works, international film festivals and awards followed. Siegfried A. Fruhauf received the Austrian Art Award for Film in 2018. The film artist also regularly delights us with music videos for the Austrian cult band Attwenger, with whom he has a long-standing friendship. With SUN, Attwenger - REAL, SPOT - an Attwenger trilogy and BLED, four of these collaborations are represented in the programme.

18:30 PROGRAMME 1

Mirror Mechanics (AT 2005, 7 min 30 sec)

The scene of a girl looking into a mirror forms the starting point for numerous complex transformations, reflections and multiple exposures. Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

BLED (AT 2007, 3 min)

A shot of the filmmaker looking into the camera is deconstructed while Attwenger sing mantra-like: ‘kinan di leid wider bled schaun heid.’

Night Sweat (AT 2008, 4 min 40 sec)

An attempt to bring the night to the screen. Three proposals to investigate the technical conditions of visual effects.

SCHWERE AUGEN (Remastered) (AT 2011 - 2017, 10 min)

The original 16 mm material for the film has gone through different formats in its genesis. The process of re-copying as a creative process.

Vintage Print (AT 2015, 13 min)

Fruhauf brings the nature motif of a single photograph from the 19th century to throbbing life and lets it burst upon the viewer as a vibrating force of nature.

SPOT - an Attwenger trilogy (AT 2015, 3 min)

‘[...] it doesn't mean that the more you look at, the more you understand’ sing Attwenger, while we immerse ourselves in pulsating red pixels.

Cave Painting (AT 2023, 14 min 30 sec)

A seemingly spherical storm of individual images leads us to a rock face that opens up pulsatingly and takes us into its inner world.

Installative projection in the loop ‘Saal 2’ in the foyer

Ballet anémic (2022, 6 min, silent)

Movements cast in filmic structures