Sirk, the artificial, and watching film history as augmented reality

Playing around with an augmented reality, researching film viewing practices, and my obsession with the question of artificiality in the films of Douglas Sirk – all this coincided in this video essay in for me surprising and disturbing ways. It showed me how by obscuring my view onto cinema with artificial reality I could actually see things more clearly.

Augmented Reality used: „Computer Generated Roots“ (2020) by Sara Rutz (www.sararutz.ch)

Note on the sound design: When rendering this video my editing software produced disturbing sound glitches that were not audible while I was working on it. I actually have no clue what went wrong. But I like the effect. It seems that the unruly apparatus yet again wanted to draw my attention to something I don’t yet understand.