Trollsländor med fåglar och orm

Dragonflies with Birds and Snake 　　Wolfgang Lehmann 2007-11 　　Sweden/Germany | Format: 16mm transferred to DigiBeta | color/b&w | silent | 60:33 minutes 　　Dragonflies with Birds and Snake is not a documentation, it is a meditation—a purely visual space of vibrant images, a journey into a world that we have never had a chance to “enter.” The title says it all; the work is an imaginative world of insects, consisting of images, combined with birds, as well as toads and snakes. The theme is the eternal cycle of life, birth, sex and death. The structure of the film’s images is continual chance. 　　The images are the pictures in the viewer’s perception. In general, there are three different images that are combined in strict rhythm. The images you see are caused by the inertia of the eye. From time to time there are shifts in addition to the combination of up to six different images. 　　Dragonflies with Birds and Snake is a composition of images and contains several frames of 16mm film. Some images are self-recorded; others are taken from scientific film material and combined in a collage-like manner. Dragonflies with Birds and Snake examines the mysterious grey zone of image and imagination. 　　Underpinning the editing of the film are notions of mosaics and repetitive music—that is, by constant repetition and change. The images therein are never actually repeated. Indeed, these “picture patterns” are change continually. Basically, a fantasy world of the realm of entomology emerges, supplemented with a hint of ornithology (insect- and birdwatching). 　　The 16mm film strips were transferred to a conventional editing table; tape and dirt are visible and part of the aesthetic image.—W.L.