''Adebar'' is a 1957 Austrian

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

short film directed by

Peter Kubelka Peter Kubelka (born 23 March 1934) is an Austrian filmmaker, architect, musician, curator and lecturer. His films, few in number, are known to be carefully edited and extremely brief. He is known for his 1966 '' Unsere Afrikareise'' (Our Trip to ...

. It is the first entry in Kubelka's trilogy of metrical films, followed by ''

Schwechater ''Schwechater'' is a 1958 experimental short film by Austrian filmmaker Peter Kubelka. It is the second entry in his trilogy of metrical films, between '' Adebar'' and ''Arnulf Rainer''. Originally commissioned to make an advertisement for , Kub ...

'' and ''

Arnulf Rainer Arnulf Rainer (born 8 December 1929) is an Austrian painter noted for his abstract informal art. Rainer was born in Baden, Austria. During his early years, Rainer was influenced by Surrealism. In 1950, he founded the ''Hundsgruppe'' (''dog gr ...

''. ''Adebar'' is the first film to be edited entirely according to a mathematical rhythmic strategy.

Description

''Adebar'' uses footage from only eight unique shots that show dancing silhouettes, arranged in 16 rigidly structured sequences. Each sequence spans 104

film frame In filmmaking, video production, animation, and related fields, a frame is one of the many '' still images'' which compose the complete ''moving picture''. The term is derived from the historical development of film stock, in which the sequentia ...

s and consists of four shots lasting 13, 26, or 52 frames. The shots always alternate between positive and

negative image In photography, a negative is an image, usually on a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film, in which the lightest areas of the photographed subject appear darkest and the darkest areas appear lightest. This reversed order occurs because the ...

s. Some freeze on the first or last frame of the shot. The film's soundtrack is a 26-frame loop of

Pygmy music Pygmy music refers to the sub-Saharan African music traditions of the Central African foragers (or "Pygmies"), predominantly in Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congo, the Central African Republic and Cameroon. Pygmy groups include the Ba ...

Production

Kubelka was commissioned to create a commercial for Café Adebar, a dance bar in Vienna. He filmed dancers against a white wall, using extreme

backlighting A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) that provides light from the back or side of a display panel. LCDs do not produce light on their own, so they require illumination—either from ambient light or a de ...

to create silhouettes. Compared to the production of his first film ''Mosaik im Vertauen'', Kubelka was less concerned with composition during production. He waited until after filming and selected images that fit what he wanted for use in ''Adebar''.

Release

Upon ''Adebar''s completion, Café Adebar rejected it as an advertisement. The film was screened at the second in April 1958. Kubelka also exhibited it at the

European Forum Alpbach The European Forum Alpbach (EFA) is an Austrian nonprofit organisation and foundation based in Vienna, Austria. It is best known for hosting the event of the same name in the village of Alpbach. It is an interdisciplinary platform for science, p ...

. The film strip had ripped in a projector, so he turned it into a sculpture by cutting it and attaching it to haystack posts so that viewers could examine it and cut off pieces. ''Adebar'' is now part of

Anthology Film Archives Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the film preservation, preservation, film studies, study, and film distribution, exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent film, independent, experimental film, ex ...

' Essential Cinema Repertory collection.

References

External links

* {{Peter Kubelka 1950s avant-garde and experimental films 1950s dance films 1957 short films Advertisements Austrian short films Films directed by Peter Kubelka Films without speech Non-narrative films Austrian black-and-white films