Sintflut
Detlef Heusinger
Sintflut (“Deluge”) is a video triptych for orchestra and electronic
instruments. Ars
Electronica will present a modified form of the original version of this
work that
premiered at the 2001 Donauesching Music Festival. The orchestra is divided
into
three groups that play in alternating accompaniment to three simultaneously
projected films (similar to triple ecran by Abel Gance). The five-channel,
taperecorded
additional sound track constitutes a direct reference to the films and
orchestra
groups. Large segments of the films consist of footage that is identical
or
similar, though with a different perspective or focus. Scenes in extreme
slow motion
alternate with those at extremely high speed. The video material shown
on additional
monitors is a made-for-TV version that maintains a spatialization. The
films
were shot in Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Italy; the postproduction
work was
done at SWR Baden-Baden and at ZKM Karlsruhe (here on Inferno).
In Sintflut, a video triptych based upon the apocryphal book Henoch, Detlef
Heusinger
attempts to establish a connection among Akkadian, Hellenistic and Yahwist
flood
legends. Henoch, God’s scribe, antediluvian patriarch and ancestor
of Noah, makes
his way on a dream-journey during which the mythological figures Philemon
and
Baucis, Andromeda and the pillar-hermit Simeon appear to him like chimeras
bearing
witness to human conceit. Obviously, we already find ourselves in the
aftermath
of a global catastrophe, since the only actual human being left to accompany
him is a foundling who has drifted to him on a skiff. This skiff becomes
what
is supposedly a rescuing island, since a constantly rising tide in the
wake of the
dying-out of mankind is consuming the landscape as well. The journey ends
in the
underworld with a passage into light that leaves all questions open.
The film is an attempt to combine the aesthetic of Tarkowsky with the
possibilities
of video art. Even in the face of all the problematic issues inherent
in this
venture, it at least gives rise to an innovative way of dealing with the
parameters
of color and rhythm—also with respect to the music.
Introduction
A backlit gravel pit. The sun shines through the spider-like conveyor
belt. Heaven
in dissolve from the real to the unreal Wilhering fresco. Over cross to
Jesus with
halo. A sheep grows into the picture—lamb of God or DOLLY the clone.
Fleecy
clouds move across on the horizon. And the world focuses in the sheep’s
eye.
The Journey
The MAN goes. Finds the dead dove in the gravel. Dove of Noah as well
as dove of peace.
Close-up of the maggots. Everything is spinning. He goes on. Then sits
down in
the gravel and tosses pebbles. In front of him, not behind him like, for
instance,
Deucalion. This one a demiurge, he only a counter and recounter, a scribe
of God
perhaps, like Henoch. Now further, barefoot over the rocky, fissured terrain.
There
he sees the snake, near death. Examines it, plays with it and lays it
on a tree stump.
Then in camp. The MAN breathes on a pane, draws a number on it and goes
inside,
entering the verdigris room. Goes through the emptiness, takes a place
at the
window. Sees: walls, towers, rows of barbed wire, everything collapsing
upon
him. He feels the coldness of Lycaon, the predecessor of the master from
Germany.
Climax.
Now in a foggy forest, heading to the cottage of Philemon and Baucis.
The elderly
couple, sitting stiffly on the table, trying to avoid the rising water,
waiting for
their existence as trees. Below them floats a children’s ark, the
animals tumbling
out. He takes one. Toy, extraneous for childless dream couples. He leaves.
Outside,
swaying naves. He wades on through flooded landscapes. The archangel draws
the disaster in the heavens. The dragon twines itself around the devil.
Knee-deep
in water, he discovers Andromeda, bound to a tree, not to a rock. He,
instead of
Perseus, frees her. Gesticulating, she begs for a coin. Puts it in her
mouth for Charon.
Climbs into the billows and sinks. Leaving only rings of wavelets behind.
A child
in a skiff. Alone. Set out, abandoned? Perhaps representing Elpis? The
child plays
with a broken doll and a sheep. The boat floats rudderless down the flooded
street,
past half-sunken traffic signs, which, having become superfluous, can
no longer
provide directions. The MAN brings the boat to a stop, the CHILD hands
him an
oar. He boards the skiff. Together, they float along with the current.
Past the cemetery,
past sunken crosses with drowning saviors. Those nailed to the cross cannot
walk on the water. The baroque sky breaks above them. Grotesque play of
colors.
The boat glides along a tree-lined avenue. He rows. His glance roams across
the
ridge of the roof of a sunken house. Flooded landscape, telephone poles
without
ground beneath them. The boat drifts, with MAN and CHILD, to the tree
of life.
This appears in Trinitarian form. And once again the churchly heavens
revolve.
From out of the clouds, view of the skiff before sinking steeple. In the
water, the
dead dove, its feathers shredded, being eater from inside by maggots.
The boat
disappears behind the steeple. It is struck by lightning. Zero. The catastrophe
overtakes
all. Global conflagration and deluge in one.
Epilog
In the submarine bunker, the underworld. The MAN, disembarking from the
boat,
carries the CHILD in his arms. Strides through the concrete land. Tree,
church and
the Crucified One appear on bunker walls. MAN and CHILD rest at a swing.
He writes.
Then the two move on to a pool filled with water and surrounded by a ring
of fire.
In it, Simeon, the pillar-hermit, naked, gesticulating crazily. The end:
walking through
a burning gate, heading toward the light.
Translated from the German by Mel Greenwald