Pan
What in Kurt Krens controlled and filigree nature-and-time study 31 / 74 Asyl threatens to happen at any moment, is consummated here in Steiners film which awakens distant memories of the former. The picture of nature has finally flown apart like a machinery which, in its last gasp, has reduced itself to its component parts and which when collected together again, refuses to form a unity.
Similar to his previous work, Zòcalo, Pan is the result of synthetic cinematography - a photo animation of uncountable layers and over-lapping enriched additionally by gestural drawing. A bare winter wood marches passed, but this central motive is to be seen intact for only a short time before it is over-grown with polymorphous masks, arhythmic flashes of landscape particles. In between the more dense passages these are left isolated in empty, black space.
Steiners process of (excessive) multiple exposure in the camera opens -especially in combination with the free use of the multifarious masks - an extensive leeway for coincidences. In fact, over longer stretches, his works are hard on borders of (total) chaos. Steiner is, however, one of the few artists who, in the technical medium of film, sometimes succeeds in maintaining the directness, spontaneity and the resulting energy of their work process right into its completion and making it perceptible to the viewer. (Thomas Korschil)
Schwenk
1998
Austria
5 min