''Arnulf Rainer'' is a 1960 Austrian experimental short film 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 ...

, and one of the earliest flicker films. The film alternates between light or the absence of light and sound or the absence of sound. Since its May 1960 premiere in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, ''Arnulf Rainer'' has become known as a fundamental work for

structural film Structural film was an avant-garde experimental film movement prominent in the United States in the 1960s. A related movement developed in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Overview The term was coined by P. Adams Sitney who noted that film artist ...

. Kubelka released a " negative" version, titled ''Antiphon'', in 2012.

Structure and content

''Arnulf Rainer'' uses only solid black or white

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 its audio alternates between

white noise In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used with this or similar meanings in many scientific and technical disciplines, i ...

and silence. As with his two previous films '' Adebar'' and ''

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 ...

'', Kubelka arranged ''Arnulf Rainer'' as a "metric film", constructed from fixed durations analogous to musical

note value In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration (music), duration of a note (music), note, using the texture or shape of the ''notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem (music), stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags ...

s. The film is broken into 16 sections, each one lasting precisely 24 seconds (576 frames). The sections are composed of "phrases" that span 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, 18, 24, 36, 48, 72, 96, 144, 192, or 288 frames. All but one of the sections move from longer phrases to shorter phrases. The film creates

suspense Suspense is a state of anxiety or excitement caused by mysteriousness, uncertainty, doubt, or undecidedness. In a narrative work, suspense is the audience's excited anticipation about the plot or conflict (which may be heightened by a viol ...

with the prolonged elements and

action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

with the faster rhythms it uses to alternate between elements. The rapid, intense patterns of light and sound often produce illusory effects. Interplay between the audio and visual components can make it challenging to distinguish which patterns are being seen and which are heard. Persistent

afterimage An afterimage, or after-image, is an image that continues to appear in the eyes after a period of exposure to the original image. An afterimage may be a normal phenomenon (physiological afterimage) or may be pathological (palinopsia). Illusory ...

s produce the appearance of swirling colors. Viewers may experience a transparent halo off-screen, particularly during the transitions between sections.

History

After his clients' negative response to ''Adebar'' and ''Schwechater'', Kubelka moved from Vienna, Austria to

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, Sweden. His friend, painter

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 ...

, commissioned him to make a film about Rainer. Before Kubelka was able to purchase film for the project, he laid out patterns on pieces of paper. He made the film out of two strips of film stock—one transparent and one black—and two strips of magnetic sound—one with no signal and one with continuous

. Kubelka named the film after Rainer as thanks for sponsoring the project and as a "compromise" in the event that he was disillusioned with the result. ''Arnulf Rainer'' premiered May 1960 in Vienna, where most of the audience walked out of the screening. Kubelka has stated that after the premiere, he "lost most of isfriends because of ''Arnulf Rainer''". Since its release, ''Arnulf Rainer'' has become Kubelka's best known work, embodying his adoption of the frame as the basic unit of cinema instead of the

shot Shot may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Shot'' (album), by The Jesus Lizard *''Shot, Illusion, New God'', an EP by Gruntruck *'' Shot Rev 2.0'', a video album by The Sisters of Mercy * "Shot" (song), by The Rasmus * ''Shot'' (2017 ...

. The film is known as a fundamental work for structural film. Critic

P. Adams Sitney P. Adams Sitney (August 9, 1944 – June 8, 2025) was a historian of American avant-garde cinema. He was known as the author of ''Visionary Film'', one of the first books on the history of experimental film in the United States. Life Sitney gr ...

identified it as one of "only three flicker films of importance", alongside

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

's '' The Flicker'' and

Paul Sharits Paul Jeffrey Sharits (February 7, 1943, Denver, Colorado—July 8, 1993, Buffalo, New York) was a visual artist, best known for his work in experimental, or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the structural film movement, al ...

's ''N:O:T:H:I:N:G''. ''Arnulf Rainer'' 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. Kubelka has declined to

digitize Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital (i.e. computer-readable) format.Collins Dictionary. (n.d.). Definition of 'digitize'. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ ...

the film, stating that "cinema is a completely different medium which cannot be imitated by the digital medium."

''Antiphon''

Kubelka revisited ''Arnulf Rainer'' with his 2012 film ''Antiphon''. ''Antiphon'' is a "negative" of ''Arnulf Rainer'' which switches black for white and silence for sound. Kubelka described the films as "

yin and yang Originating in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (, ), also yinyang or yin-yang, is the concept of opposite cosmic principles or forces that interact, interconnect, and perpetuate each other. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary an ...

". He presented it in an installation titled ''Monument Film''. ''Monument Film'' consists of ''Arnulf Rainer'', ''Antiphon'', the two films projected side-by-side, and the two films superimposed. ''Monument Film'' was designed as a film installation that could not be reproduced digitally. Under ideal settings, the superposition of the two films would be a white screen with continuous noise. However, variations in the projectors and speakers reveals the films' common structure. Kubelka has described it as "a duet for projectors." ''Monument Film'' premiered at the 2012

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...

References

External links

* {{Peter Kubelka 1960s avant-garde and experimental films 1960 short films 1960 films Austrian black-and-white films Austrian short films Films directed by Peter Kubelka Films without speech Non-narrative films