Ernst Schmidt Jr.

Once again, the title is to be taken entirely literally. It's happening – for about two seconds: a man and a woman (Günter and presumably Anna Brus) in the position of coitus a tergo in shallow water in front of reeds. Their athletic bodies are painted white (in the typical Brus action style); they hardly move, and look like classical statues. Or is what is happening rather a sequence that takes up, for an even shorter amount of time in this super-short film, its foreground? What happens is this: a naked man walks through the picture, cigarette in hand, bent over, as if...

This film is a kind of anthology about Vienna, from the invention of film to the present day. The aim is to break down the usual clichéd "image of Vienna" such as that found in the traditional "Vienna Film" by juxtaposing documentary footage, newly shot material and subjective sequences created by various artists. Individual, self-contained sections of the film gain new meaning within the context of historical material. Familiar sites appear estranged when edited together with historical scenes. Other scenes appear like a persiflage or satirical. The film does not incorporate any commentary whatsoever. It is a collage of diverse materials aimed at conveying a distanced image of Vienna to the viewer

In May 1965, Ernst Schmidt Jr. films the Otto Muehl performances Rumpsti Pumsti and Body Building. In this period Muehl conceives his actionist works almost exclusively for photographic and film documentation. The necessity of a spontaneous confrontation with the public, which plays a major role in Muehl's later actions, does not apply to these works.

Steine (Stones) is a documentary film on a sculptorsŽ symposium in St. Margarethen, Burgenland. Behind this short description of content lies one of the most intelligently filmed and concepted documentary films in the history of Austrian film. The date of the last showing of this film could not be reconstructed.

The formal deconstruction of an Austrian tourist advertisement sign. The national colors red white and red have been removed, filmed separately. In the "white" area is the word "information." The sound is a montage made of parts of Filmreste (Film Remains) and is only audible when the "red" areas appear on the screen. This film echoes preceding films as well as the semantic meaning of the colors red-white-red and their "information"-value. (E.S.jr.)

From START to the end, from the film title to the END title. The title initiates its repetition in the black-and-white image: the banner START flutters in the wind, presumably above the starting point of a race. We are in the middle of the film, which will end four seconds later; at the same time, the banner is another film title, even with the signature of a production company, as in mainstream cinema – "CAROP AUTOVERLEIH", as if this car rental named CAROP were a cinema corporation or (film) distributor. After a wild pan, the "Verleih" (distributor) presents the action: a motorcyclist races through the image of an enduro race. The film is less enduring, but it has shown everything it can anyway. (The enduro race in Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising is much more boring.) (Drehli Robnik)

Once again, the title is to be taken entirely literally. It's happening – for about two seconds: a man and a woman (Günter and presumably Anna Brus) in the position of coitus a tergo in shallow water in front of reeds. Their athletic bodies are painted white (in the typical Brus action style); they hardly move, and look like classical statues. Or is what is happening rather a sequence that takes up, for an even shorter amount of time in this super-short film, its foreground? What happens is this: a naked man walks through the picture, cigarette in hand, bent over, as if...

This film is a kind of anthology about Vienna, from the invention of film to the present day. The aim is to break down the usual clichéd "image of Vienna" such as that found in the traditional "Vienna Film" by juxtaposing documentary footage, newly shot material and subjective sequences created by various artists. Individual, self-contained sections of the film gain new meaning within the context of historical material. Familiar sites appear estranged when edited together with historical scenes. Other scenes appear like a persiflage or satirical. The film does not incorporate any commentary whatsoever. It is a collage of diverse materials aimed at conveying a distanced image of Vienna to the viewer

This film is a kind of anthology about Vienna, from the invention of film to the present day. The aim is to break down the usual clichéd "image of Vienna" such as that found in the traditional "Vienna Film" by juxtaposing documentary footage, newly shot material and subjective sequences created by various artists. Individual, self-contained sections of the film gain new meaning within the context of historical material. Familiar sites appear estranged when edited together with historical scenes. Other scenes appear like a persiflage or satirical. The film does not incorporate any commentary whatsoever. It is a collage of diverse materials aimed at conveying a distanced image of Vienna to the viewer

In May 1965, Ernst Schmidt Jr. films the Otto Muehl performances Rumpsti Pumsti and Body Building. In this period Muehl conceives his actionist works almost exclusively for photographic and film documentation. The necessity of a spontaneous confrontation with the public, which plays a major role in Muehl's later actions, does not apply to these works.

Steine (Stones) is a documentary film on a sculptorsŽ symposium in St. Margarethen, Burgenland. Behind this short description of content lies one of the most intelligently filmed and concepted documentary films in the history of Austrian film. The date of the last showing of this film could not be reconstructed.

The formal deconstruction of an Austrian tourist advertisement sign. The national colors red white and red have been removed, filmed separately. In the "white" area is the word "information." The sound is a montage made of parts of Filmreste (Film Remains) and is only audible when the "red" areas appear on the screen. This film echoes preceding films as well as the semantic meaning of the colors red-white-red and their "information"-value. (E.S.jr.)

From START to the end, from the film title to the END title. The title initiates its repetition in the black-and-white image: the banner START flutters in the wind, presumably above the starting point of a race. We are in the middle of the film, which will end four seconds later; at the same time, the banner is another film title, even with the signature of a production company, as in mainstream cinema – "CAROP AUTOVERLEIH", as if this car rental named CAROP were a cinema corporation or (film) distributor. After a wild pan, the "Verleih" (distributor) presents the action: a motorcyclist races through the image of an enduro race. The film is less enduring, but it has shown everything it can anyway. (The enduro race in Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising is much more boring.) (Drehli Robnik)

This is a film with minimal content. Using a film pen, a line was drawn across a strip of clear leader, until it hit the edge of the frame ("cheers"), and then the line was drawn back to the other side ("cheers"), etc. This strip functioned as the film negative. The projection is the drawn out line as a white line that wanders back and forth, bringing light and darkness into the theater. Because of this one should not only watch the movie screen, but also the light that comes out of the projector and the reflections in the theater. A "light play." (E.S.jr.)

‘Kunst & Revolution is a documentation on the famous action known as the “filthy uni mess”, which led to a jury court trial. I only had a few metres of film with me and they were quickly spent, but still the film gives one a rough impression of the events. As a whole mythology quickly arose around the event, I altered the material to counteract this effect (through repetition, and adding other material, for instance from a film about keeping dogs, and my own leftover footage from the Muehl action number 54 ‘Im Freudenauer Wasser’).’ In film 16 of his anthology Ernst Schmidt Jr. documented the actions of Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, Peter Weibel and Oswald Wiener.

Ernst Schmidt Jr. SAALLICHT (1974, 30 sec, 16mm)

Conceptual overabundance was contrasted with nothing in Nothing, which, as the title promises, was nothing. Two years later, when Schmidt Jr. wanted to produce a film version of Nothing consisting of a whiteness that was gradually and imperceptibly to shift to black, the film lab thought the negative was faulty and stayed with the original, that is: it copied – nothing. (Peter Tscherkassky)

In this film the goal of destroying film semantics has been consistently followed though. Part of the film is composed of a seemingly collision of picture and sound. Whilst filming, the colors called out in the sound were really filmed. Because of the "mistakes" made (unfocusing, copying process, color temperature) the colors in the final printing were wrong. The audience is then confronted with these discrepancies. (E.S.jr.)

Recorded during a presentation of the "Performance Art Festival" in the Modern Art Galerie, Vienna. The presentation was officially put to an end by the police because of the infernal sound made by the accompanying noise orchestra. In this film short shots have been "mounted" in the camera. The film material is shown twice, whereas the sound is composed over the entire length of the film (out of elements of the real sound from the performance). (E.S.jr.)

In a blank film, holes were punched with a office hole-punch. During the projection, only the black scratches present in the material, which form over the course of time, can apparently be seen in the holes as well. (E.S.)

Sara Suranyi, known from Schmidt Jr.'s 12 Uhr Mittags – High Noon, The Merry Widow and Mein Begräbnis ein Erlebnis (My Funeral an Adventure), now active as Sara Berger in painting and photography, is co-creator and star of this one-shot movie dated "Vienna 1977". Does the eponymous little machine allude to the pubic hair framed in close-up by the zip fastener of a pair of jeans? Well, it's not about sexuality, but rather about technology: the zip is broken, so Suranyi uses a safety pin to close the jeans fly. And to close the film. (In Suranyi/Berger's list of works, this film is listed under Die Sicherheitsnadel...

Expanded cinema with a real and a projected curtain. (This film is part of the 20 Action and Destruction Films.)

Baron Childerich III of Bartenbruch considers himself to be a descendant of the Merovingian dynasty and he has drawn up a chart of marriages and adoptions which show that he is his own father, grandfather, father-in-law, and son-in-law. He aims at achieving the "total family" based on one man. He persuades his french relative, Pippin, to help him. But the latter lets him down and breaks up the family... Among those who belong to the (surrounding) world of the Baron are Dr. Döblinger, a writer, who has formed a band of muggers and Professor Horn, a psychiatrist, who quiets his patients by leading them on nose rings and beating them up... Family satire with numerous personal and literary allusions based on the novel of the Austrian writer, Heimito von Doderer.

Baron Childerich III of Bartenbruch considers himself to be a descendant of the Merovingian dynasty and he has drawn up a chart of marriages and adoptions which show that he is his own father, grandfather, father-in-law, and son-in-law. He aims at achieving the "total family" based on one man. He persuades his french relative, Pippin, to help him. But the latter lets him down and breaks up the family... Among those who belong to the (surrounding) world of the Baron are Dr. Döblinger, a writer, who has formed a band of muggers and Professor Horn, a psychiatrist, who quiets his patients by leading them on nose rings and beating them up... Family satire with numerous personal and literary allusions based on the novel of the Austrian writer, Heimito von Doderer.

Material actions: Otto Muehl. Montage of left-over film material from film scraps, amateur films, film leaders, recordings of material happenings, etc. Edited according to an exact plan (60 blocks of 10 takes each), then largely drawn over. My most destructive film, the "model for a futuristic newsreel."

This film has two parts. In the first part, the film material is on 8mm uncut film, so that in the 16mm projection a 4-fold film can be seen. In the second part of the film, the 16mm film is shown in full size, that means the picture is now enlarged four times its size. I drew over the film after the fact, and abstracted it in many different ways. (E.S.jr.)

On the 28th of October 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber, candidate of the National Liberal Party in Chemnitz, suffered a heavy defeat at the elections of the German Reichstag. He was taken up in the mental clinic of the Leipzig University soon afterwards. To his rehabilition he wrote an extensive piece of work, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), which was published in 1903 and led to his temporary dismissal. Hereby Schreber became the most quoted psychiatric patient in scientific literature. The third part was realized by Peter Tscherkassy based on a concept by Ernst Schmidt Jr.

On the 28th of October 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber, candidate of the National Liberal Party in Chemnitz, suffered a heavy defeat at the elections of the German Reichstag. He was taken up in the mental clinic of the Leipzig University soon afterwards. To his rehabilition he wrote an extensive piece of work, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), which was published in 1903 and led to his temporary dismissal. Hereby Schreber became the most quoted psychiatric patient in scientific literature. The third part was realized by Peter Tscherkassy based on a concept by Ernst Schmidt Jr.

A nostalgic honoring as well as a reciprocal re-make of the film of the same name by Willi Forst. A setting to film of a 1930s book, literally: page by page. (E.S.jr.)

This film includes shots from Silberarsch (Silver Arse; the 16th material action by Otto Muehl, 1965), Bimmel-Bammel (Ding-Dong; MuehlŽ s 17th material action, 1965). Gehirnoperation (Brain Operation; MuehlŽ s 22nd material action, 1965, with Günter Brus) as well as Aus der Mappe der Hundigkeit (Out of the Folder of Dogginess) by Valie Export and Peter Weibl. Valie takes Weibel, who crawls on all fours, on a walk along the Kärntnerstraße in Vienna (February 1968), the film also includes a few cuts out of diverse amateur films, among others a film by Walter Funda on dog breeding. Wild montage, destruction through painting-over of the film.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ - each letter is one frame (1/24 of a second) long and each letter originates from a company sign. The film shows the paradoxical relationship between film and written language. (E.S.jr.)

The eponymous "Hallo", "Hello", greets an apparently nine-year-old fragment, perhaps rediscovered and now processed into a three-second one-shot movie by means of a title frame, very probably found footage. Or maybe the film snippet returns from obscurity with a friendly "Hello". And it shows the presumably silent "Hello" of a telephone operator who appears in close-up. Inscriptions are a trace, expanded into a game by Schmidt Jr.: the lettering on her dress and on a poster behind her identifies the telephone operator as an employee of CAROP RENTAL, which also adorned and sponsored the opening title sequence of Schmidt...

This is a portrait of Peter Weibel, and at the same time a reflection on the medium film. As Peter Weibel looks silently into the camera (and thus to the audience) his own difficult text on the subject "Nimm eine Handvoll Zelluloid" ("Take a handful of celluloid;" published as Werkstatt Blatt 3, ed. Gottfried Schlemmer) is heard in his own voice. Due to the complexity of human language and the imperfection of the human ear, this linguistic information can only be imperfectly communicated to the audience. A film about the difference between cinema and literature. (E.S.jr.)

On the 28th of October 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber, candidate of the National Liberal Party in Chemnitz, suffered a heavy defeat at the elections of the German Reichstag. He was taken up in the mental clinic of the Leipzig University soon afterwards. To his rehabilition he wrote an extensive piece of work, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), which was published in 1903 and led to his temporary dismissal. Hereby Schreber became the most quoted psychiatric patient in scientific literature. This first part of the project, originally conceived as a long feature film, was finished while Ernst Schmidt Jr. was still alive.

On the 28th of October 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber, candidate of the National Liberal Party in Chemnitz, suffered a heavy defeat at the elections of the German Reichstag. He was taken up in the mental clinic of the Leipzig University soon afterwards. To his rehabilition he wrote an extensive piece of work, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), which was published in 1903 and led to his temporary dismissal. Hereby Schreber became the most quoted psychiatric patient in scientific literature. This first part of the project, originally conceived as a long feature film, was finished while Ernst Schmidt Jr. was still alive.

A person sticks it out for 24 hours in front of the camera. Every ten minutes a short clip was recorded, 8 frames per second (which is then projected at a speed of 24 f.p.s.). The tiredness of 24 hours in a time lapse of 4 minutes. (E.S.jr.)

This film is a combination of body art, re-making and reconstructing a "film genre" from the early era of filmmaking (series "Comic Faces", 1898, Director: G.A. Smith): Making faces in front of the camera. (E.S.jr.)

Filming and calling the result a diary is literary. It is filmic to write a film diary and have this writing scroll by as film.

A test film for the later realized "Memoirs of My Nervous Illness" which was shot on Super-8 and premiered at Wels in 1985.

A test film for the later realized "Memoirs of My Nervous Illness" which was shot on Super-8 and premiered at Wels in 1985.

All of the photos in Eine Subgeschichte des Films (A Sub-history of Film) by Scheugl/Schmidt (Suhrkamp edition 471) one after another, cut inside in the camera using the same scheme as in Gesammelt von Wendy (Collected by Wendy): each therefore 7, 5, 3, 1 frame(s) long. The film of films. (E.S.jr.)

On the 28th of October 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber, candidate of the National Liberal Party in Chemnitz, suffered a heavy defeat at the elections of the German Reichstag. He was taken up in the mental clinic of the Leipzig University soon afterwards. To his rehabilition he wrote an extensive piece of work, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), which was published in 1903 and led to his temporary dismissal. Hereby Schreber became the most quoted psychiatric patient in scientific literature. This second part was finished after Ernst Schmidt Jr. death by his assistant Susi Praglowski.

On the 28th of October 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber, candidate of the National Liberal Party in Chemnitz, suffered a heavy defeat at the elections of the German Reichstag. He was taken up in the mental clinic of the Leipzig University soon afterwards. To his rehabilition he wrote an extensive piece of work, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), which was published in 1903 and led to his temporary dismissal. Hereby Schreber became the most quoted psychiatric patient in scientific literature. This second part was finished after Ernst Schmidt Jr. death by his assistant Susi Praglowski.

Through the use of a time lapse effect (single frame shots), the changes in a face covered with a cream cheese mask for 30 minutes are condensed into one minute. (E.S.jr.)

A film consisting of the titles of films that were shown in Viennese cinemas at the time of its creation.

With P.R.A.T.E.R. Schmidt turned his attention to the place where, once, the medium first came into existence (the Prater is P.R.A.T.E.R. is marked by a strongly repetitive flow. Schmidt's prime interest lies with people, their facial expressions and manner of looking. The film is in two parts; while the first acts as an exposé of the main themes, treatment and disintegration of these themes is intensified in the second part.