Future Past Perfect Pt. 03 (U_08-1)

Conceived as the sixth installment of the multi-part series future past perfect, this short film is the result of a long-standing fascination with the famous cambodian white building, a large apartment complex in the center of phnom penh. nicolai's interest and motivation for the film project are rooted in his personal connection to the artist collective sa sa art projects who have also and continuously dealt with the housing complex in artistic ways. for the artist, the architecture of the white building is a prime example of a form adequate to its building materials and developed organically out of function.

In a short cinematic essay, the second part of the series of short movies called future past perfect illustrates the issue of the individual that is brought into line with a vertically organised social structure. shot at le corbusier's unité d'habitation in nantes (also called cité radieuse), the film concentrates on the modular system applied for the residential building which finds its expression down into the smallest details of design: doors, windows, taps, door handles, light switches, etc. constitute the inhabitants living space through their standardised forms. the cinematic result is a combination of consecutive sequences of single images and tracking shots of various details inside the apartments and on the hallways of the apartment block. thereby, both the different benchmarks of standardised production are correlated and the reciprocity of the built-up environment with the inhabitants individual appropriation are examined.

Conceived as the fourth part of the series under the name future past perfect, the fourth short film of the row is the result of a long-term fascination with clouds, their movements, structure/texture, and their potentially infinite variety of forms. shot from the plane on various trips, the sequences of cloud imagery are edited and collaged in different ways to match the diverse qualities of constitution and behaviour of clouds. the short movie especially focussed on so-called stratus clouds, a category of clouds that usually appears rather flat, hazy and featureless. their visual quality as seen from above may imply micro and macro structures at the same time thus potentially deceives the viewer's perception.

Conceived as part of the future past perfect series the seventh part is focused on the surfaces/structures of fluids. simular to pt.01 and pt.04 this short film explores the topic of micro and macro structures and was inspired by the mathematical theory of attractors. as the title already mentions the film was shoot in istanbul at the bosporus.

sononda is the first part of the short film series future past perfect and was originally recorded in 2006. the series whose single fragments are supposed to be parts of a larger scale film project is designed as a row of conceptually independent movies that document nicolai's focus of interest of the respective year of origin and also builds up on the results of the movie(s) before. despite sononda's visual quality seems artificial at times, it was shot in a natural environment. the focus is directed on the sculptural quality of light. the correspondence of both music - with its low frequency modulations and merging soundscapes - and light play on the curved surfaces of the sculptural stone formations create an ever-changing atmosphere of concrete and abstract appearances.

The last film in Vidokle's trilogy on Cosmism is a meditation on the museum as the site of resurrection-a central idea for many Cosmist thinkers, scientists and avant-garde artists. Filmed at the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Zoological Museum, The Lenin Library, and the Museum of Revolution, the film looks at museological and archival techniques of collection, restoration and conservation as a means of the material restoration of life, following an essay penned by Nikolai Federov on this subject in the 1880s. The film follows a cast comprised of present-day followers of Federov, several actors, artists and a Pharaoh Hound that playfully enact a resurrection of a mummy, a close examination of Malevich's Black Square, Rodchenko's spatial constructions, taxidermied animals, artifacts of the Russian Revolution, skeletons, and mannequins in tableau vivant-like scenes, in order to create a contemporary visualization of the poetry implicit in Federov's writings.

The second installment of Anton Vidokle’s trilogy on Russian cosmism, The Communist Revolution Was Caused By The Sun, looks at the poetic dimension of the solar cosmology of Soviet biophysicist Alexander Chizhevsky. Shot in Kazakhstan, where Chizhevsky was imprisoned and later exiled, the film introduces Сhizhevsky’s research into the impact of solar emissions on human sociology, psychology, politics, and economics in the form of wars, revolutions, epidemics, and other upheavals. It aligns the life of post-Soviet rural residents and the futurological projects of Russian cosmism to emphasize that the goal of the early Soviet breakthroughs aimed at the conquest of outer space was not so much technical acceleration, but the common cause of humankind in their struggle against the limitations of earthly life.

Based on the ideas of Russian philosopher, Nikolai Fedorov, Anton Vidokle’s film was shot in Siberia, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. Fedorov, like others, believed that death was a mistake, “because the energy of cosmos is indestructible, because true religion is a cult of ancestors, because true social equality is immortality for all.” Fedorov was one of the Cosmo-Immortalists, a surge of thinkers that emerged in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They linked Western Enlightenment with Russian Orthodoxy and Eastern philosophical traditions, as well as Marxism, to create an idiosyncratically concrete metaphysics. For the Russian cosmists, cosmos did not mean outer space: rather, they wanted to create “cosmos” on earth. “To construct a new reality, free of hunger, disease, violence, death, need, inequality – like communism.”

Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, accompanied by a live visual score, perform their second collaborative work “Insen”. Recorded at Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal, on June 11th, 2006.

208 recognisable three letter words cascade across the screen. The foundations of our capitalist, technocratic society. From time to time, the voiceover throws a spanner in the works.

Conceived as the fourth part of the series under the name future past perfect, the fourth short film of the row is the result of a long-term fascination with clouds, their movements, structure/texture, and their potentially infinite variety of forms. shot from the plane on various trips, the sequences of cloud imagery are edited and collaged in different ways to match the diverse qualities of constitution and behaviour of clouds. the short movie especially focussed on so-called stratus clouds, a category of clouds that usually appears rather flat, hazy and featureless. their visual quality as seen from above may imply micro and macro structures at the same time thus potentially deceives the viewer's perception.

In a short cinematic essay, the second part of the series of short movies called future past perfect illustrates the issue of the individual that is brought into line with a vertically organised social structure. shot at le corbusier's unité d'habitation in nantes (also called cité radieuse), the film concentrates on the modular system applied for the residential building which finds its expression down into the smallest details of design: doors, windows, taps, door handles, light switches, etc. constitute the inhabitants living space through their standardised forms. the cinematic result is a combination of consecutive sequences of single images and tracking shots of various details inside the apartments and on the hallways of the apartment block. thereby, both the different benchmarks of standardised production are correlated and the reciprocity of the built-up environment with the inhabitants individual appropriation are examined.

Conceived as part of the future past perfect series the seventh part is focused on the surfaces/structures of fluids. simular to pt.01 and pt.04 this short film explores the topic of micro and macro structures and was inspired by the mathematical theory of attractors. as the title already mentions the film was shoot in istanbul at the bosporus.

sononda is the first part of the short film series future past perfect and was originally recorded in 2006. the series whose single fragments are supposed to be parts of a larger scale film project is designed as a row of conceptually independent movies that document nicolai's focus of interest of the respective year of origin and also builds up on the results of the movie(s) before. despite sononda's visual quality seems artificial at times, it was shot in a natural environment. the focus is directed on the sculptural quality of light. the correspondence of both music - with its low frequency modulations and merging soundscapes - and light play on the curved surfaces of the sculptural stone formations create an ever-changing atmosphere of concrete and abstract appearances.

Conceived as the sixth installment of the multi-part series future past perfect, this short film is the result of a long-standing fascination with the famous cambodian white building, a large apartment complex in the center of phnom penh. nicolai's interest and motivation for the film project are rooted in his personal connection to the artist collective sa sa art projects who have also and continuously dealt with the housing complex in artistic ways. for the artist, the architecture of the white building is a prime example of a form adequate to its building materials and developed organically out of function.