The Thinking Machine 6

Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López reflect on the art of filmmaking in monthly video essays.

In 1974, Georges Perec wrote Espèces d’espaces, or in English Species of Spaces. Austrian experimental filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky is also clearly intrigued by the inventory of different types of space. His dense layering/printing process works through the pictorial atomisation and pulverisation of fragments from a ‘found’ film. In the case of his Outer Space (1999), most commentators regard Sidney Furie’s The Entity (1982) as seemingly indifferent raw material for the artist. A closer audiovisual look at the two works in tandem reveals how truly inspired Tscherkassky was by this remarkably stylised horror film.