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
November 16th & 17th at the Gijón International Film Festival
November 16th, 18th, 19th and 22nd idfa Internatinal Documentary Film Festval Amsterdam in 3D
November 20th Filmmaker Festival Milan in 3D
November 28th Gent Art Cinema OFF off 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
If we see the world with two eyes, why does cinema ofer us just one image to show it? Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik try to answer this question with a cyclical 3D short film that passes through a field outside Vienna and the recent history of three-dimensional moving images alike. Shot on two celluloid cameras, the short film takes a spiraling, infinite-seemingly journey from the outskirts of an agricultural facility to the inner workings of the Cyclostéréoscope, an early predecessor of 3D technology. Inside, outside, inside, outside.
Gonzalo de Pedro, Viennale in October 2024
A complex technical and intellectual research that becomes an aesthetic and sensory synthesis: this is the essence of Revolving Rounds, the short film by Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik, designed for a 3D film experience, but existing in five different projection formats. It all begins from an approach to physics as a speculative "science" investigating the sensory capacities of a body considered posthuman. That is, a body that transcends our logical and perceptual categories (the legacy of rational and positivist knowledge) to merge ontologically into an interspecies and symbiotic network that also involves the plant world.
This metaphysical possibility is translated into visual and sensory language through the use of optical tools like stereoscopy, shifting perspectives from the landscape to the human, and from the plant to matter, creating shared sensory imaginaries.
The spectators become part of a translational movement of two synchronized cameras, which, from a pea plant greenhouse, gradually move closer, entering an ancient cinematic device prototype, the cyclostereoscope, and then even deeper into the chemical composition of the film strip itself, and thus into the fibers of a pea shoot stem projected by the machine.
It is as if, through the optical device, it becomes possible to deconstruct the physical and spatial barriers separating the human from the rest of matter, bringing us – literally – closer to the synesthetic modes and capacities of plant perception.
In accordance with its title, the short film is also a circular experiment, beginning from the same point at which it ends, much like a "space journey" or a psychedelic trip, inside the genetic code of a plant, a film strip, light, and ourselves.
Arianna Tremolanti, Filmmaker Festival Milan in November 2024
A threedimensional experience that requires no special glasses. There's a winter field, a pale morning sun, a greenhouse. A gliding camera, jump cuts and various film formats make time and space dissolve. In the greenhouse await projectors, a cyclostereoscope and the elegant shoots of a young pea plant.
The foliage and veins of the plant become increasingly grainy, to the sound of a rattling projector, until a magnificent landscape of color emerges. A cyclical film in form and content.
idfa Amsterdam, November 2024
Johann Lurf teams up with artist and architect Christina Jauernik in this magnetic and circular short film, where landscape, nature and light establish a symbiotic dialogue through two synchronised cameras, two projectors and a cyclothereoscope, technological devices that invade the natural space and create a new representation of reality.
Gijón International Film Festival, November 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)
Gewächshäuser am Stadtrand. Eine sprunghafte Annäherung im Gegenlicht der Morgensonne. Während das Filmmaterial wechselt, entpuppt sich im Inneren ein eigentümlicher Apparat als historische Kinomaschine: ein Cyclostéréoscope für autostereoskopische 3D-Bilder. Und wie durch ein Wunder lässt die Wundermaschine im Glashaus plötzlich grüne Bilder wachsen, wie im dunklen Kinosaal. Doch der neugierige Blick schaft keine Gewissheit, sondern verwirrende Faszination: Durch das rotierende Lamellenraster hindurch wird das Filmkorn zur Erbse – und umgekehrt.
Michael Pekler für die Viennale, Oktober 2024
Johann Lurf, a quien el FICX dedicó una retrospectiva en 2018 y presente en la Sección Oficial de 2019 con Cavalcade, se une a la artista y arquitecta Christina Jauernik en este corto magnético y circular, donde paisaje, naturaleza y luz establecen un simbiótico diálogo a través de dos cámaras sincronizadas, dos proyectores y un ciclostereoscopio, aparatos tecnológicos, que invaden el espacio natural y crean una nueva representación de la realidad. Mención Especial en Locarno y seleccionado en Toronto.
Gijón International Film Festival, November 2024
Una ricerca tecnica e intellettuale complessa che si fa sintesi estetica e sensoriale: è questo il senso di Revolving Rounds, il cortometraggio di Johann Lurf e Christina Jauernik pensato per una visione in pellicola 3D, ma che esiste in ben cinque formati di proiezione diversi. Tutto nasce a partire da un approccio alla fisica intesa come “scienza” speculativa, che indaga le capacità sensibili di un corpo considerato postumano. Ovvero, un corpo che trascende le nostre categorie logiche e percettive (retaggio di un sapere razionale e positivista) per amalgamarsi a livello ontologico in una rete interspecie e simbiotica che coinvolge anche il mondo vegetale.
Questa possibilità metafisica è resa linguaggio visivo e sensoriale grazie all’uso di strumenti ottici come la stereoscopia, per spostare le prospettive dal paesaggio all'umano e dalla pianta alla materia, producendo immaginari sensoriali condivisi.
Gli spettatori diventano parte di un movimento traslazionale di due telecamere sincronizzate che, da una serra di piante di piselli, si avvicinano, fino a entrarci dentro, al prototipo di un antico apparecchio cinematografico, il ciclostéréoscope, e poi ancora più a fondo, dentro alla composizione chimica della striscia di pellicola stessa, e quindi dentro le fibre dello stelo di un germoglio di pisello che la macchina proietta.
È come se, grazie al dispositivo ottico, fosse possibile decostruire le barriere fisiche e spaziali che separano l’umano dal resto della materia, avvicinandoci – letteralmente – ai modi e alle capacità sinestetiche del rilevamento delle piante.
Il corto, in accordo con il titolo, è formalmente anche un esperimento circolare, che comincia dallo stesso punto in cui finisce, proprio come un “viaggio spaziale” o un trip psichedelico, all’interno del codice genetico di una pianta, di una pellicola cinematografica, della luce e di noi stessi.
Arianna Tremolanti, Filmmaker Festival Milan in November 2024
Een driedimensionale ervaring waarbij geen bril nodig is. Een winterse akker, een bleke ochtendzon, een kas. Voortglijdende camera's, jump cuts en verschillende filmformaten laten tijd en ruimte vervliegen. In de kas wachten projectoren, een cyclostéréoscope en de zwierige scheuten van een jonge erwtenplant.
Steeds gruiziger worden het bladgroen en de nerf, tot een schitterend kleurenlandschap ontstaat, bij het geluid van een ratelende projector. Een cyclische film in vorm en inhoud.
idfa Amsterdam, November 2024
Revolving Rounds ถ่ายทำในพื้นที่เกษตรกรรมในออสเตรีย ติดตามเส้นทางแผนผังควบคู่ไปกับโรงเรือนกระจกเกษตรกรรม ในขณะที่ลำแสงอาทิตย์ยามเช้ากำลังสาดส่องไปบนภูมิทัศน์รายรอบ Johann Lurf และ Christina Jauernik ใช้เครื่องมือภาพยนตร์ในยุคกลางเพื่อสร้างภาพสามมิติในรูปแบบ autostereoscopic โดยปราศจากแว่นตา
16th World Film Festival Bankok, November 2024
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
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