Revolving Rounds
directed by Christina Jauernik & Johann Lurf
2024 11 minutes 35mm Dual Strip 3D or 2D with Dolby Digital·EX or 4K 3D or 2D with Atmos
August 16th & 17th World Premiere at the 77th Locarno Film Festival, Pardi di Domani: Concorso Corti d'Autore in 35mm
September 5th-15th North American Premiere at TIFF Wavelenghts, Toronto International Film Festival in 3D
September 27th at 25FPS Zagreb in 3D
September 27th - October 14th US Premiere at the 62nd New York Film Festival, Currents in 3D
Befitting its title, Revolving Rounds is a cyclical film in both form and content. Shot at an agricultural field on the outskirts of Vienna, Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik’s 3D short begins as it ends, tracking a planimetric path alongside three greenhouses as the early morning sun beams across the surrounding landscape. Approaching the structures via a series of jump cuts (each registering a slight change in light and accented by an eventual switch from 35mm to 16mm film), the two synchronized cameras settle in front of the structure to the far right, before moving inside where a pair of 16mm projectors and a cyclostéréoscope sit in the distance.
An early-century cinematic device that uses a rotating barrier-grid to display autostereoscopic 3D without the need for glasses, the cyclostéréoscope today resembles a piece of industrial farm equipment as much as a premodern line screen apparatus—a correlation that Lurf and Jauernik tease out through a spatiotemporal intervention with both the instrument itself and the subject being animated in its spinning frame: a pea plant. Across a pair of abrupt cuts—this time from dusk to twilight and from twilight to total darkness—the projectors suddenly whir to life as footage of the plant is cast on the cyclostéréoscope. Soon, Lurf and Jauernik’s encroaching cameras breach the threshold of the projected image, pushing past the point of legibility and into a purely granular yet volumetric space where the essence of the natural world meets the chemical composition of the film strip. As the frame pulls back, we find ourselves where we began: in the light of day, charting a course through space, time, and perception. A field trip in every sense.
Jordan Cronk in Summer 2024
A collaboration between Wavelengths alum Johann Lurf and artist-academic Christina Jauernik as part of an experimental research project, Revolving Rounds incorporates the vintage Cyclostéréoscope apparatus in an oblique, dizzying immersion into the act of plant growth and cultivation. The film was realized as part of the FWF research project “Unstable Bodies” at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024, Wavelenghts Program
Synchronized cameras trace a stereoscopic crawl through fields and greenhouses in early morning sunlight. An early-century 3-D device projects footage of a pea plant that shatters into a throbbing mass of particles to reveal the vibrant materiality of the film strip. In Revolving Rounds, Christina Jauernik and Johann Lurf lead the eye on a journey beyond dimensions of Cartesian space and familiar states of matter, an odyssey to the limits of perception and back.
New York Film Festival in October 2024, Currents Program
Among five excellent short films our special mention goes to an experimental film with an incredibly artistic soundtrack, expressing the imperative of a holistic view on the relationship between technology and nature, which is essential for our survival.
Special Mention (Short Film) Pardo Verde, Locarno Film Festival 2024
Revolving Rounds. Kicking off the first of three Wavelengths shorts programs in three-dimensional glory, filmmaker Johann Lurf’s collaboration with fellow Viennese architect, artistic researcher, and performance artist Christina Jauernik is a piece that, like many of Lurf’s previous shorts, spans spaces and formats. Filmed (on film) at an agricultural field outside Vienna, Lurf and Jauernik’s piece is said to be concerned with an autostereoscopic system called the cyclostéréoscope. Developed in 1942 by Frenchman François Savoye, the device uses a kind of revolving cone and projection screen to conjure depth illusions without the need for glasses (though this screening will, somewhat ironically, require spectacles). Any new 3D is an event these days, especially when it arrives in the avant-garde.
Blake Williams, Filmmaker Magazine in September 2024
On the other end, Revolving Rounds, a 3D film by Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik that opened the program, is organized by visual display by virtue of the stereoscopic accessory required for proper viewing. First, we begin in an agricultural field with a row of greenhouses in sunlight. Shifting in focus, the images bring to mind the memory of sitting for an eye exam, where one is instructed to look at a barn before we’re startled by a puff of air. As if at the optometrist’s office, our eyes seem to be seized by the filmmakers. With a series of abrupt cuts, we’re brought inside the structure to view its botanical contents in increasingly closer detail at varied hours of the day. In the second half, through the mechanism of a cyclostéréoscope apparatus, the film presents an exquisite coupling of the cellulose of plants and the celluloid of film strips, bouncing between scales of the macro and micro to pulsing sounds. Hypnotic and spectacular, Revolving Rounds employs the use of an early cinematic device to great effect, bridging modern technologies of cinema and agriculture in an exhilarating fashion.
Winnie Wang, POV Magazine in September 2024
Wie der Titel schon nahelegt, ist Revolving Rounds ein zyklischer Film. Zyklisch in Form und Inhalt. Johann Lurf und Christina Jauernik haben in 3D auf einer Agrarfläche am Stadtrand von Wien gedreht. Der kurze Film endet dort, wo er begonnen hat. Eine aufgehende Sonne erstrahlt über der Landschaft, während sich die Kamera auf drei Gewächshäuser zubewegt. Mit einer Reihe von Jump Cuts nähert sich der Film den Gebilden (mehrere Veränderungen setzen Akzente: zuerst nur des Lichts, schließlich auch des Filmmaterials, von 35 auf 16mm). Die beiden sychronisierten Kameras erreichen eine Position vor dem rechten der drei Gewächshäuser. Dann gehen sie hinein, und treffen auf zwei 16mm-Projektoren und ein Cyclo-Stéréoscope, die zuerst noch im Hintergrund auszunehmen sind.
Das Cyclo-Stéréoscope ist ein Gerät, das in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts erfunden wurde, um mit Hilfe eines rotierenden Lamellen-Rasters autostereoskopische 3D-Projektion zu erzeugen, für das man keine gesonderten Brillen brauchte. Heute sieht es aus wie ein Gerät aus der industralisierten Landwirtschaft, oder wie ein vormoderner Kreiselheuer. Lurf und Jauernik spielen mit diesen Entsprechungen, indem sie raumzeitliche Interventionen sowohl mit dem Gerät wie auch mit dem Motiv vornehmen, dass es mit seinem drehenden Bildrahmen zeigt: eine Erbsenpflanze. Wieder arbeiten sie mit abrupten Schnitten – dieses Mal zwischen Dämmerung und Zwielicht und Zwielicht zu vollständiger Dunkelheit. Und in diesem Moment erwachen die Projektoren zum Leben. Auf dem Cyclo-Stéréoscope erscheinen Bilder von der Pflanze. Die zudringlichen Kameras von Lurf und Jauernik durchbrechen die Distanz zu den projizierten Bildern. Sie lassen deren Lesbarkeit und Bedeutungsebene hinter sich und erreichen einen Raum des Bildkorns, der aber immer noch räumlich messbar ist: der Wesenskern der natürlichen Welt trifft auf die chemische Zusammensetzung des Filmstreifens. Der Bildausschnitt weicht wieder zurück, und wir finden uns dort, wo wir zu Beginn waren: im Licht des Tages, auf einer Bewegung im Raum, in der Zeit, in der Wahrnehmung. Ein Gang ins Feld in jeder Hinsicht.
Jordan Cronk im Sommer 2024 (Übersetzung: Bert Rebhandl)
An artistic research project by Unstable Bodies: Wolfgang Tschappeller, Christian Freude, Christina Jauernik, Fabian Puttinger, Johann Lurf, Rüdiger Suppin
Supported by Institute for Art and Architecture, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna & Vienna Scientific Cluster
Funded by Austrian Science Funds FWF AR574
September 5th-15th North American Premiere at TIFF Wavelenghts, Toronto International Film Festival in 3D
September 27th at 25FPS Zagreb in 3D
September 27th - October 14th US Premiere at the 62nd New York Film Festival, Currents in 3D
Befitting its title, Revolving Rounds is a cyclical film in both form and content. Shot at an agricultural field on the outskirts of Vienna, Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik’s 3D short begins as it ends, tracking a planimetric path alongside three greenhouses as the early morning sun beams across the surrounding landscape. Approaching the structures via a series of jump cuts (each registering a slight change in light and accented by an eventual switch from 35mm to 16mm film), the two synchronized cameras settle in front of the structure to the far right, before moving inside where a pair of 16mm projectors and a cyclostéréoscope sit in the distance.
An early-century cinematic device that uses a rotating barrier-grid to display autostereoscopic 3D without the need for glasses, the cyclostéréoscope today resembles a piece of industrial farm equipment as much as a premodern line screen apparatus—a correlation that Lurf and Jauernik tease out through a spatiotemporal intervention with both the instrument itself and the subject being animated in its spinning frame: a pea plant. Across a pair of abrupt cuts—this time from dusk to twilight and from twilight to total darkness—the projectors suddenly whir to life as footage of the plant is cast on the cyclostéréoscope. Soon, Lurf and Jauernik’s encroaching cameras breach the threshold of the projected image, pushing past the point of legibility and into a purely granular yet volumetric space where the essence of the natural world meets the chemical composition of the film strip. As the frame pulls back, we find ourselves where we began: in the light of day, charting a course through space, time, and perception. A field trip in every sense.
Jordan Cronk in Summer 2024
A collaboration between Wavelengths alum Johann Lurf and artist-academic Christina Jauernik as part of an experimental research project, Revolving Rounds incorporates the vintage Cyclostéréoscope apparatus in an oblique, dizzying immersion into the act of plant growth and cultivation. The film was realized as part of the FWF research project “Unstable Bodies” at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024, Wavelenghts Program
Synchronized cameras trace a stereoscopic crawl through fields and greenhouses in early morning sunlight. An early-century 3-D device projects footage of a pea plant that shatters into a throbbing mass of particles to reveal the vibrant materiality of the film strip. In Revolving Rounds, Christina Jauernik and Johann Lurf lead the eye on a journey beyond dimensions of Cartesian space and familiar states of matter, an odyssey to the limits of perception and back.
New York Film Festival in October 2024, Currents Program
Among five excellent short films our special mention goes to an experimental film with an incredibly artistic soundtrack, expressing the imperative of a holistic view on the relationship between technology and nature, which is essential for our survival.
Special Mention (Short Film) Pardo Verde, Locarno Film Festival 2024
Revolving Rounds. Kicking off the first of three Wavelengths shorts programs in three-dimensional glory, filmmaker Johann Lurf’s collaboration with fellow Viennese architect, artistic researcher, and performance artist Christina Jauernik is a piece that, like many of Lurf’s previous shorts, spans spaces and formats. Filmed (on film) at an agricultural field outside Vienna, Lurf and Jauernik’s piece is said to be concerned with an autostereoscopic system called the cyclostéréoscope. Developed in 1942 by Frenchman François Savoye, the device uses a kind of revolving cone and projection screen to conjure depth illusions without the need for glasses (though this screening will, somewhat ironically, require spectacles). Any new 3D is an event these days, especially when it arrives in the avant-garde.
Blake Williams, Filmmaker Magazine in September 2024
On the other end, Revolving Rounds, a 3D film by Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik that opened the program, is organized by visual display by virtue of the stereoscopic accessory required for proper viewing. First, we begin in an agricultural field with a row of greenhouses in sunlight. Shifting in focus, the images bring to mind the memory of sitting for an eye exam, where one is instructed to look at a barn before we’re startled by a puff of air. As if at the optometrist’s office, our eyes seem to be seized by the filmmakers. With a series of abrupt cuts, we’re brought inside the structure to view its botanical contents in increasingly closer detail at varied hours of the day. In the second half, through the mechanism of a cyclostéréoscope apparatus, the film presents an exquisite coupling of the cellulose of plants and the celluloid of film strips, bouncing between scales of the macro and micro to pulsing sounds. Hypnotic and spectacular, Revolving Rounds employs the use of an early cinematic device to great effect, bridging modern technologies of cinema and agriculture in an exhilarating fashion.
Winnie Wang, POV Magazine in September 2024
Wie der Titel schon nahelegt, ist Revolving Rounds ein zyklischer Film. Zyklisch in Form und Inhalt. Johann Lurf und Christina Jauernik haben in 3D auf einer Agrarfläche am Stadtrand von Wien gedreht. Der kurze Film endet dort, wo er begonnen hat. Eine aufgehende Sonne erstrahlt über der Landschaft, während sich die Kamera auf drei Gewächshäuser zubewegt. Mit einer Reihe von Jump Cuts nähert sich der Film den Gebilden (mehrere Veränderungen setzen Akzente: zuerst nur des Lichts, schließlich auch des Filmmaterials, von 35 auf 16mm). Die beiden sychronisierten Kameras erreichen eine Position vor dem rechten der drei Gewächshäuser. Dann gehen sie hinein, und treffen auf zwei 16mm-Projektoren und ein Cyclo-Stéréoscope, die zuerst noch im Hintergrund auszunehmen sind.
Das Cyclo-Stéréoscope ist ein Gerät, das in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts erfunden wurde, um mit Hilfe eines rotierenden Lamellen-Rasters autostereoskopische 3D-Projektion zu erzeugen, für das man keine gesonderten Brillen brauchte. Heute sieht es aus wie ein Gerät aus der industralisierten Landwirtschaft, oder wie ein vormoderner Kreiselheuer. Lurf und Jauernik spielen mit diesen Entsprechungen, indem sie raumzeitliche Interventionen sowohl mit dem Gerät wie auch mit dem Motiv vornehmen, dass es mit seinem drehenden Bildrahmen zeigt: eine Erbsenpflanze. Wieder arbeiten sie mit abrupten Schnitten – dieses Mal zwischen Dämmerung und Zwielicht und Zwielicht zu vollständiger Dunkelheit. Und in diesem Moment erwachen die Projektoren zum Leben. Auf dem Cyclo-Stéréoscope erscheinen Bilder von der Pflanze. Die zudringlichen Kameras von Lurf und Jauernik durchbrechen die Distanz zu den projizierten Bildern. Sie lassen deren Lesbarkeit und Bedeutungsebene hinter sich und erreichen einen Raum des Bildkorns, der aber immer noch räumlich messbar ist: der Wesenskern der natürlichen Welt trifft auf die chemische Zusammensetzung des Filmstreifens. Der Bildausschnitt weicht wieder zurück, und wir finden uns dort, wo wir zu Beginn waren: im Licht des Tages, auf einer Bewegung im Raum, in der Zeit, in der Wahrnehmung. Ein Gang ins Feld in jeder Hinsicht.
Jordan Cronk im Sommer 2024 (Übersetzung: Bert Rebhandl)
An artistic research project by Unstable Bodies: Wolfgang Tschappeller, Christian Freude, Christina Jauernik, Fabian Puttinger, Johann Lurf, Rüdiger Suppin
Supported by Institute for Art and Architecture, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna & Vienna Scientific Cluster
Funded by Austrian Science Funds FWF AR574