video, 9 min., 16:9, sound, colour — 2024
distribution: sixpackfilm

RESONANCE explores Alpine landscapes and the echoes of electromagnetic waves from Switzerland’s abandoned former key broadcasting tower. Through telephoto shots and audible radio waves, the film highlights the lasting impact of this post-war technology.

Pale Alpine scenery, trembling focus, plus a silence drowned out by rumbling and static. Distance and fragmentation determine the vibrational space of Resonance. Telephoto views of cloud-covered glaciers. Blurred edges of forest, a view of a dim valley. Or, in the opposite direction, television towers appear in the shimmering light of high Alpine horizons: in particular, the Felsenegg broadcasting tower, built in 1963 on the Albis mountain range southwest of Zurich. Abandoned by people, stripped of its TV transmission and airspace surveillance functions, the electromagnetic radio waves once received and transmitted here echo in Katharina Bayer’s short film, particularly as vibrating images. But it is not only allegorical, artifactual gestures that symbolize the past long-distance connections to the transmission masts located on the surrounding mountain peaks. In addition to the image framing wobbling in the wind, and the image sharpness rhythmically shifting with the use of an open aperture and long focal length, the “natural radio waves” that are made cracklingly audible by radio wave performer Tetsuo Kogawa also show how far this technology is from today’s transmission standards. Additional close-ups inserted into the film depict various structural elements and apparatus of the tower as they were found shortly before its final demolition: steel latticework, radar antenna in blazing sunlight, monitors, switch boxes – which are now the archived traces of a post-war society characterized by information, entertainment, and espionage. Bayer’s film, elegantly composed and metaphorically linked to weather conditions, subtly reminds us that the legacy of these traces is by no means obsolete. [Rainer Bellenbaum, 6.2.2024]


CREDITS
Concept, image & edit: Katharina Bayer
Color: Jyrgen Ueberschär
Sound Design: Toni Schlesinger
Recordings of Radio Waves: Tetsuo Kogawa
Field recordings: Katharina Bayer
Mentoring: Clemens von Wedemeyer, Mareike Bernien

WITH SUPPORT FROM
BMKÖS — Federal Ministry Republic of Austria Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport »Start-Stipendium 2021 | 2022« 
Canton of Zurich Department of Culture »Arbeitsstipendium Covid-19«


SCREENINGS

09.01.2025
RESONANCE in:
Film Archiv Austria: Metro Cinema Vienna, Austria

12.11.2024
RESONANCE in: Yes & No presents Austrian Artist Film: Programme 2
The Institute of Contemporary Arts ICA London, England

28.10.+29.10.2024
RESONANCE in: Short Film Program 7: Vibrations
Viennale'24 International Film Festival Vienna, Austria