paris

Billy Roisz is one of the most productive and consistent artists in Austria´s experimental-film scene. When creating what are mostly abstract audiovisual works, she employs primarily analogue equipment that has been repurposed for her particular needs: translating sounds into electronic visual impulses in realtime. The surprising aspect is that, repeatedly and apparently without effort, she discovers new aspects in her works without altering her basic method significantly.

paris was made as a music video for the Norwegian rock trio MoE, whose raw style is between metal and noise. "I like the anger," is roared into the microphone programmatically by the charismatic bassist and singer Guro Skumsnes Moe, who also writes the lyrics. In addition to the highly charged front woman´s raw voice, nothing more than an electric bass, guitar and drums are required to express pure anger and desperation. Roisz translates each instrument and Moe´s voice into its own visual level, and the end results are then layered visually.

In perfect synchronicity with the music, horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines flicker across the black screen in a staccato rhythm. The range of colors includes red, white and blue with occasional yellow. In addition - as a visual analogy for the song´s brutal nature - real-life footage of a torn-up street briefly appears several times. Despite the two-dimensionality of the visual level, this sculpture of sound and image pulls the video´s viewers into the depths, which is intended both formally and metaphorically. While the use of non-representational videos to accompany electronic music is now fairly unremarkable, combining metal and an abstract visual language is extremely uncommon. In paris, Billy Roisz provides impressive evidence that catharsis and abstraction are in no way mutually exclusive: "Show no mercy!" (Norbert Pfaffenbichler)
Translation: Steve Wilder