"Journeys to nothingness" - a computer animated journey going back to itself like a game. From the universe of dices and boxes, spaces are created and transversed in changing perspectives. A journey without goal, having as its topic the labyrinthic situation in which - as a result of movement -the perspectivic space of illusion is lead back into the plane. Every little fraction of notion is lost under the syntax of the rules. Imaginations from de Chirico's world of images are interlocked with the expressive means of the "cinema pure". "Journeys to nothingness" is a first metaphoric inquest into the aesthetical and semantic structures of calculator-generated expression, motivated simultaneously by fascination and scepticism. (F. W Kluge)

Technical background:

The animation was realized on a VAX 1 1 /780 and with the software programme system KON+DAR. The rendering of the single frames was done on a Tectronix 4115 colour graphics screen with a resolution of 1024x780 pixels, the hardcopy and postprocessing were made on 35 mm colour negative film.

Franz W. Kluge, graduated Mathematician, born 1949 in Celle/FRG. Working as teacher and film artist. Studied mathematics and arts in Saarbrucken and Mainz. 1976 graduated with diploma. In 1979 he received a grant of the Joh.-Gutenberg University Mainz for a scientific work (“The morphogenesis of infantile drawings under a semiotic aspect”). Consequently he realized various short films. Since 1983 he cooperates with Prof Helmut Emde in computer animation. Franz W. Kluge's special interest stresses upon the aesthetical problems of this medium. In 1985 he realized the film “Babels Monument” for the Second German TV Channel, incorporating computer animated sequences. Since 1987 he is working at the short film “Animation-Extermination-Reanimation” in the course of which “Journeys to nothingness” was created. At present he is working at two more short film projects including computer animation.