Tunnel (1988-89, 16mm), Thomas Demand

Tunnel is a short film by German artist Thomas Demand, intended to evoke the idea or the memory of a journey through an underpass, rather than to simulate the experience of any actual event.


In fact, Tunnel shows not a real underpass but a large-scale model, constructed by the artist, out of  materials like paper and cardboard and then filmed, using a special effects camera. The soundtrack too is entirely artificial, computer-generated to suggest the movement of a vehicle through the tunnel rather than its actual sound.



Demand describes his film as 'more an animated still image than a cinematographic undertaking'. His interest lies mainly in the formal qualities of the piece, which he relates to both musical composition and minimal structures. Thus, although the film can be considered as a succession of evenly spaced still images, these images are tightly choreographed into an overall structure made up of several slightly different sequences. In each sequence the artist has introduced variations in, for example, the speed of the camera, its direction and angle, and the length of the dark passages between each drive-through.


The way in which Demand has chosen to display his film Tunnel relates it closely to the still photographs for which he is mainly known. He uses a thick projection screen which stands just in front of the wall, giving the film the same permanent, object quality, as his photographs, which occupy a realm somewhere between two dimensions and sculpture. 








http://theexposureproject.blogspot.com/2009/11/thomas-demands-tunnel-1999.html