Abstract

The artist Susanne Weirich recently exhibited a poetic machine which promises to prophecy or to herald good fortune: The FortuneTelling Machine (1995). In my film Prüfstand 7 [Test Stand 7], a creature appears that similarly wishes to herald something. There is, however, a problem. A curtain surrounding planet earth prevents this creature from meeting us and from speaking or heralding events in its own appropriate language. Unlike the curtain in Weirich's The Word Wolke (2001), another work which seems to be in dialogue with rocketry, this curtain is impenetrable, and the sphere behind it remains invisible. But sometimes the curtain turns into a surface for projection. Then we see various styles of images: we see pictorial discourse of, on and about the rocket projected onto it. The first five minutes of Prüfstand 7 give an impression of how these different picture dialects are connected within the film–and of the way Bianca (the name of the creature) wanders through them.

How to Cite:

Bramkamp, R., (2002) “The Curtain Between the Images”, Pynchon Notes , 25-34. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.68