Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine

Bolt's hundred-meter time stretched from 9.58 to 960 seconds, chopped by the echo of a .45-70 caliber gunshot into a frenzied frenzy, pushing the traditional cadence of the film reel into the era of Winchesters. How does one prolong the experience of the moment with the knowledge that it always takes place in the blink of an eye, during which it arises and disappears? Tscherkassky's cinematographic method is unique: he’s not trying to slow down or even stop the moment, but instead to maximize every second (half a second, quarter of a second?) to the utmost extent, not multiplying the inner power of each shot by 24 times, but 24 to the power of x, smashing each shot a thousand times and each time letting it play against itself the game of the echo of the supersonic jet engine, trying to escape from itself from the grip of the canyon walls. And yet how, when Tscherkassky cannot draw that inner power from the (narrative) meaning of the sequence, but only from its visual impact? Simply put, he sets the most essential materials of each shot against each other, the image of the scene itself; in "Outer Space," he also tries to capture and prolong the moment, and this fact is taken to cinematographic ad absurdum when we see the contrasting play of the film reel itself. (27.08.2015)