Lis Rhodes. Dresden Dynamo

Dresden Dynamo, 1972
originally 10 mins (above: excerpt 5 mins), colour 16mm

courtesy the artist

It was perhaps the question of sound – the uncertainty of any synchronicity between what was seen and what was said that began an investigation into the relationship of sound to image. ‘Dresden Dynamo’ is a film that I made in 1972 without a camera – in which the image is exactly the sound track – the sound track the image. A film document. LIS RHODES

Dresden Dynamo (1972) is part of her first films she made while she was still a student
on the media communications course at the North East London Polytechnic.
The film features graphic patterns with frenetic interplays of colour, movement
and sound:
Dresden Dynamo is the result of experiments with the application of Letraset and
Letratone onto clear film.It is essentially about how graphic images create their own
sound by extending into that area of film which is ‘read’ by optical sound equipment.
The final print has been achieved through three, seperate, consecutive printings from
the original material, on a contact printer. Colour was added, with filters, 
on the final run. The film is not a sequential piece. It does not develop crescendos.
It creates the illusion of spatial depth from essentially, flat, graphic, raw material.
– TIM BRUCE
From this abstract beginning RHODES has developed a distinctive film practice which
fuses formal experiment with political intent, asking questions of the ideological
underpinnings to be found not only in the language of cinema, but more widely, in
culture, society and politics. – LUCY REYNOLDS
LIS RHODES is one of the principal artists of British avant-garde film after 1970.
After working with the London Filmmakers’ Co-op she co-founded Circles
(later: Cinenova), the first distribution company for films and videos by women. 
She currently lives and works in London, where a survey exhibition of her career, 
Lis Rhodes: Dissonance and Disturbance, was held at the ICA earlier this year.
Her films are distributed by LUX.


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