Shapes projected onto an abstract environment. The movement and scale of the forms in the film is a beautiful equivalent of the dynamics of the soundtrack
Déserts was created to accompany a live performance of the work of avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse (1885-1965). The Ensemble Modern, a contemporary music group based in Frankfurt, commissioned Viola to create a visual score for Varèse's Déserts after discovering notes by the composer referring to an unrealized image component of his composition. The resulting film/videotape was produced with the European television stations ZDF/Arte. In October 1994 Viola's Déserts premiered in a live performance in Vienna with conductor Peter Eötvös and the Ensemble Modern
Based on two poems by Rafael Alberti, Garabatos (“Scribbles”) is a reflection on childhood, education and the demise of innocence. Music by Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer and Edgard Varèse.
Animations (only parts in nuclei in the film) and images, many of them archival and foreign, illustrate that the notion of time is associated with movement and its measurement is performed by the rotation of the Earth around its axis and the Sun. The angle of inclination of the Earth in this last movement also marks the climatic seasons. From the need for greater accuracy in measuring time, gnomons and solar quadrants arose, for whose reading the duodecimal numbering is used. Based on this numbering, time zones and mechanical measuring devices were established, illustrated by the clock mechanism with a church bell. The evolution of astronomy determines the creation of more accurate electronic devices for the evaluation of time, such as the meridian telescope, the Markowitz chamber, the electronic oscillators and the telescope, with which astronomers work at the National Observatory.
Poème Électronique is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The Philips corporation commissioned Le Corbusier to design the pavilion, which was intended as a showcase of their engineering progress. The pavilion was shaped like a stomach, with a narrow entrance and exit on either side of a large central space. As the audience entered and exited the pavilion, the electronic composition Concret PH by Iannis Xenakis (who also acted as Le Corbusier's architectural assistant for the pavilion's design) was heard. Poème électronique was synchronized to a film of black and white photographs selected by Le Corbusier which touched on vague themes of human existence.
Although loved by a respectable doctor, a society-girl is fascinated by a prince and follows him to Rome. When he reveals himself in his true colours, she has a nervous breakdown and her faithful doctor restores her to health - and to himself.
