Focus on Sigfried. A. Fruhauf. Programm 2

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.

Programme 2

Höhenrausch (AT 1999, 4 min)

A cinematic myriorama, constructed from hundreds of Austrian postcards.

SUN (AT 2003, 5 min 30 sec min)

The sun filmed in real time as a study of everything that is film: light and movement. The music is by Attwenger.

Exterior Extended (AT 2013, 9 min)

Fruhauf used a 35mm photo film with 36 shots as the source material for a stringent study of cinematic spatial perception.

Phantom Ride Phantom (AT 2017, 10 min)

A railway track overgrown in rich red and green begins to pulsate gently out of itself and forms the matrix of a continuous image splitting.

WHERE DO WE GO (AT 2018, 4 min)

Series of images of trains, tracks, bridges and nature - minimal phases of movement that are brought together in a multi-part split screen to create a frenzy of images.

Attwenger - REAL (AT 2021, 3 min)

The classic of early cinema ‘Workers leaving the factory’ transferred from VHS cassette to DVD and filmed from a TV monitor. Signals of digitised silver grain to the driving Attwenger beat.

Mare Imbrium (AT 2024, 12 min)

This intoxicating visual frenzy begins with the reflection of the full moon on a water surface - elementary particles from reflections of a body on a moving surface.

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

Ballet anémic (2022, 6 min, silent)

Movements of industrial meat processing machines cast in filmic structures.

The programme will be followed by an audience discussion with Siegfried A. Fruhauf.

Organisation and moderation: Lotte Schreiber

Film still: Attwenger - REAL (AT 2021, 3 min)