STOP AND GO
video by Werner Schmiedel
1984/85 color 15 min.

Special Thanks to Johanna Heer

Festivals / Screenings:
World Wide Video Festival, The Hague (NL)
Cafe Krasnapolsky, Kopenhagen (DK)
JVC Tokyo Video Festival, Tokyo (JP)
videoart-gallery

STOP AND GO is comparable to the composition of a modern piece of music. The pattern and language of the images in this film were developed according to the conventions and structures of music.
The images elaborate on impressions of New York City: the desire to “be here”, the desire for movement, for “go” — but also, again: “out-of-town”, or “leaving-town”, the search for silence, for a pause, the desire for reflection, for stillness. The images, in their organizational and editing methods, follow the compositional content. These are “pieces for contemplation” that should be watched and listened to more than once. Like the listener of a record, the viewer is invited to observe: non-narrative stories are told, stories in an abstract way, so that they can be “continued in the viewer's mind.”
This method leaves enough space for the audience. The viewer can weave the “seen” and “experienced” reality on the monitor into an existing or yet-to-be-experienced story. -- Werner Schmiedel, 1985

"Advance of the binary world; schizophrenia of modern man; resurgence of faith in ancient philosophical techniques of handling aesthetic values and moral stances. Blurb-speak spring immediately to mind as you watch 'Stop and go', in which Schmiedel films his move to New York from his own point of view. Go stands for a tilled camera and fast intercutting of images, producing kaleidoscopic changes of colour. The sound is turned to fortissimo and attempts to reach crescendo. The proverb 'See Naples and die' is modernised to read 'See New York and die of exhaustion on the spot'. Stop! At the weekend we excape from Manhattan and Coney Island and stand peacefully watching the barriers at some level crossing come down, stay down. Perhaps we hope they will sometime go up again. The choice seems clear to me." -- Erik Daams, Catalogue WWVF 1986