Campus Magazin Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg 22/23

ANIMATIONSINSTITUT 20 YEARS – 20 PROJECTS
Jazz Orgie – Irina Rubina
A Dialogue of Circles and Lines
«WOULD YOU LIKE TO WRITE
SOMETHING ABOUT IRINA
RUBINA’S JAZZ ORGIE (2015)?»
I AM ASKED. «TAKE A LOOK AT IT, YOU’LL
LIKE IT! IT’S CLOSELY RELATED TO YOUR
BUSBY». BUSBY IS THE FILM I MADE IN THE
SECOND YEAR OF MY STUDIES. BACK THEN,
THE ANIMATIONSINSTITUT WAS CALLED
DIGITALE BILDGESTALTUNG (DIGITAL IM-
AGE CREATION) AND WAS NOT A SEPARATE
INSTITUTE. THE FILMAKADEMIE HAD ONLY
BEEN ESTABLISHED FIVE YEARS PREVIOUS-
LY AND WE WERE JUST GETTING USED TO
THE NEW «E-MAIL» COMMUNICATION TECH-
NOLOGY AND WERE LEARNING COMPUTER
SOFTWARE USING THICK MANUALS PRINT-
ED ON PAPER. YOUTUBE HAD NOT EVEN
BEEN INVENTED, THE INTERNET STILL DID
NOT HAVE IMAGES AND STUDENTS TAUGHT
ONE ANOTHER THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES.
«I’D LOVE TO,» I REPLIED.
While I am waiting for her reply, I watch my old film
BUSBY. BUSBY stands for Busby Berkeley, the Hollywood
choreographer who created monumental ornaments
from dancing female bodies. The film could just
as well have been called Karl – after Karl Blossfeldt, who
opened my eyes to the mathematical aspects of nature
and thereby made me appreciate how mathematics can
be perceived as beautiful.
«Even jazz honours its forebearers – the standard pieces
– varies and reinterprets them and ultimately frees itself
in improvisation,» is what goes through my head and:
«Jazz, or music in general is a sort of translation of mathematics.»
Perhaps Irina can say more about that.
«I started by studying Fine Art,» she explains, «but it
was not the right thing for me.» She was looking for
something pure at the time, for beauty that does not live
from discourse but is valid in itself and everywhere and
JAZZ ORGIE begins suddenly and is already over after
76 seconds. I have to smile. Black, white, orange, red and
yellow dance to drums, bass, trumpet and saxophone.
Yes, I like the film, I watch it on a continuous loop. The
music is simultaneously the sound and the image: swing
and pauses are animated precisely, illustration is avoided,
abstraction celebrated. Where I see in my mind’s
eye a lascivious hip swing coming down the stairs, the
squares of the chess board cross over one another. Areas
are painted in thick colour against black, lines drawn
as if with delicate chalk. Karl Valentin once said: «Art is
beautiful, but it’s a lot of work».
«Why paint by hand in the age of digital efficiency?»
I want to ask Irina. I send her an e-mail.
» Black,white, orange, red and yellow
dance to drums, bass, trumpet and
saxophone. «
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