IN MEMORIAM : BART VEGTER

IFFR25.01.2012 - 12.02.2012

IN MEMORIAM : BART VEGTER

Last summer the Rotterdam experimental filmmaker Bart Vegter died. In 2010 Bart answered to our request for a compilation of his films. He loved to see his work screened in the intimate atmosphere of the video lounge while enjoying a coffee.

Starting with films on celluloid Bart later developed his own computer programs in order to create his colorful moving images, shapes and patterns, which are strongly inspired by movements and patterns in nature. As is characteristic for all good art his works go beyond his medium which is undoubtedly film: one could just as well say that Bart was a poet, sculptor, painter, choreographer.

In Memoriam Bart Vegter is a compilation as a tribute to his works, combined with works of other artists that we thought would be good company:

RENÉ ADEMA • JIRI VAN DALEN • JOOST VAN VEEN • COEN JANSSEN • KLAUS WYBORNY • KAREL DOING • JESSE FRANZEN • JOOST REKVELD • DIRK DE BRUYN • MARCUS BERGNER

compiled by Toine Horvers and Kathrin Wolkowicz

Bart Vegter: In Need of Space 1982 5:00
At first glance a vertical colour version of his first film 'Horizontalen' from one year earlier. But slowly the passing colours are changing into three-dimensional forms, objects in changing colours and rotating on the hallucinating sounds of Steve Reichs Music for 18 instruments. Bart was a bit worried for using this music without permission: Steve better should be very proud.

René Adema: Compositie #01 2005 3:40
Maybe this film is the closest to Bart Vegter's early filmic experiments.
René plays an aesthetic game with gently waving lines drawn on wall-paper, a process caused by a mechanically controlled and regulated source of movement.
The transparent fine grey tones and the refined movement evoke a comparison with Bart Vegters film 'Horizontalen'

Coen Janssen: Color motion symphony 2010 1:00
Young Rotterdam artist whose work fits in a special way in the tradition of experimental film. Color Motion Symphony could be an animation of Josef Albers colour study paintings. 
But it is specially the sounds that give it a nearly narrative character.

Karel Doing: Nature Trail 1993 3:00
Rotterdam experimental filmmaker who works in collaboration with a variety of artists from other disciplines: composers, dancers, mucisians and performers.
Nature Trail consists of processed landscape images moving in a rhythmic pattern over the screen - the monotonous rhythm of a folk dance - haunted by the hypnotizing fiddle sounds of the Danish composer Martin Hall.

Bart Vegter: Space-Modulation 1994 1:00
Created with self-written software.
After all the years Bart was still very enthusiastic about the  dizzying effect of his intervention: the opposing movements of the pixels.
The process is the story of the big bang, the closed circuit of life.

Dirk de Bruyn: Grid grid 2004 10:00
Dirk de Bruyn was born in Dordrecht and moved with his parents to Australia when he was eight years old. Most of his work deals with the trauma of migration and cultural displacement, expressed in the nature of the medium film itself with the flicker and the after image.
Grid Grid is a horizontal layering of footage in combination with drawings, letters and numbers which is  typically of Dirk's films. A nervous movement referring to the movements of horizontal interference on a TV screen, in an audio visual play with the fascinating sounds by Dan Armstrong.

Jiri van Dalen: Celluloid Chaos 2006 0:45
Hard core visual techno, pure as the first playing-experience with material and medium of drawing on celluloid, parallel with the processed sounds of the projector.
Bruce McClure would love it.

Jesse Franzen: He moves She evolves 2007 2:10
Young Rotterdam experimental filmmaker.
As a viewer one is continuously moved to and fro between the idea of a machine-like movement and the bodily movements of human beings resulting in movements of light (or the reverse: shadow)  This is in immediate connection with the sound, of which one finally can distinguish the origin of hardcore guitar noise. 

Klaus Wyborny: Studien zum Untergang des Abendlandes 1987/2010  fragment 8:00
'Studien zum ....' which was successfully screened in the 2011 edition of IFFR, is a hallucinating experimental work in which music and image are interwoven in a very radical way: for each note of Klaus Wyborny's piano piece, a new image appears on the screen. This very severe connection between the basic elements of music and stills, taken from mostly industrial surroundings and forced into an artificial movement, creates a metaphysical and at the same time poetic experience.

Bart Vegter: Nacht-licht 1993 13:00
Nachtlicht is made with self-written software.
'processes that become visible in patterns in the sand at low water or the waves caused by the wind' (from a text on Bart's work by Joost Rekveld)
But at the same time these systematically created images and patterns strongly refer to patterns in for instance textile designs, in timeless traditions of decoration.

Coen Janssen: Radar 2010 2:25
It is unpredictable when and what appears on the radar, what triggers the system, a sensitive instrument. It can also stay black for a period. A story about light appearing and vanishing in fine grids, comparable with the sensitivity of light in Bart Vegters 'Horizontalen'.
The sound with this film is both interesting and strange: it is as while working on the film in the studio the microphone stayed open by accident.

Joost Rekveld: #3 1994 4:00
Joost was in relatively close contact with his much older master Bart Vegter. He wrote an interesting text on experimental film in general, with a special reflexion on Bart's work.
# 3 is an older work which immediately connects with the idea of neon in brightness as well as in colour. There is a constant awareness of nearly centrifugal speed in the movement of the light source. Sometimes there are refences with classical film on moments where it looks like zooming in on one part of the moving line.

Joost van Veen: Delerium 2011 2:50
Joost van Veen is an experimental filmmaker who is always interested in collaborations in the field of music and theatre. One of these connections is his participation in the group Faces where his work plays an important visual role in their music/theatre productions. Also in Delerium, an animated collage based on very few images, music is of crucial dramaturgic importance.

Marcus Bergner: Musical Four Letters 1989 5:03
'Every conceivable word with four-letters that has anything to do with music has been written directly onto the surface of a 1940's Mexican musical film' (quote from a catalogue)
Musical Four Letters is an early work of Marcus Bergner, which strongly shows the relation with the poetry of Arf Arf , the sound poetry performance group from Melbourne (of which Marcus is a member), for which poetry and film are inseparably connected.

Bart Vegter: Horizontalen 1981 6:00
Distant horizons seen through near windows. Approaching waves, collapsing and creating fields of foam. Clouds, light and dark skies. Light appearing and vanishing.
In fact there are only overlapping and non-overlapping light-surfaces, refined movements of transparent grey tones. Just too beautiful to describe.

Supported by Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht, Budelinc and Urban Espresso Bar.