Martin Arnold
° 1959
Lives in Vienna (), born in Vienna ().
Martin Arnold has been making experimental films since 1988. He studied psychology and art history at the University of Vienna, and his films have gained him an international reputation. In his work, Arnold reinterprets various scenes from Hollywood movies from the 1920s to the 1960s, usually choosing unexpected or psychologically charged scenes. He manipulates both image and sound to transform them into strange and sometimes hilarious sequences, or even black-comedic nightmares. Martin repeats small movements or close-ups of actors and actresses. Ancillary figures are removed, music and dialogue are muted. In this way, the artist makes unexpressed emotions visible. He always employs the same tactics: he sets his images in loops or has them consistently recur in some other way, so that the viewer gets continuously sees the same thing. The tempo of the editing, however, varies. Sometimes the pace is fast, but then mixed with other images that pass very slowly. This obsessive repetition induces a hypnotic effect: the rhythm gets a grip on viewers’ attention. After a while one becomes aware that something that had remained under the surface in the old film, is brought to the foreground by Arnold.
