This Arrow Points

Siegfried A. Fruhauf astonishes yet again with a new experiment in his rich cinematic oeuvre. He often transfers individual photographs or a few frames into a sequence of movements driven by structural ideas and plans, which also results in genres of narrative cinema erupting in a fragmented and condensed form: from melodrama to horror spectacle. In This Arrow Points, however, no figurative images or silhouettes appear; abstract black and white lines are the sole material used in the animation. 

The point of departure is a philosophical question by Ludwig Wittgenstein: “How does it come about that this >>>→ arrow points?”, which he (and others) affirms as proof of the meaning of a concept through its use in language. Siegfried A. Fruhauf then investigates how abstract configurations achieve their expression in the process of cinematography. By considering the graphic recordings and diagrams of his structural works as a basis for this film, the artist turns to conceptual film. Even though the viewer is placed in a position of considering the possible meaning of lines of varying lengths and distances in a temporal dimension – in all likelihood an overly theoretical and sensually unproductive activity – the interplay of electronic sound and optical stimuli creates an ecstatic cinematic experience. Fruhauf does not analyze the effect of the graphic elements in an essay but rather creates synaesthetic effects using the illusionistic possibilities of film. The question of whether the flickering and the resulting afterimages on the retina simulate colors or evoke a mood of intoxication, whether the acceleration evokes a rise to a possible climax and subsequent relaxation, is up to each individual viewer. (Brigitta Burger-Utzer) 

Translation: John Wojtowicz