“Vertical Cinema is the only film screening I’ve ever attended where earplugs were handed out at the door.”

– Nick Cain, The Wire 2013 

International premiere of Vertical Cinema at IFFR 2014 

The Vertical Cinema project, which was presented at Kontraste in October 2013, will have its international premiere on 24 January 2014 at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The programme is accompanied by a lecture by Professor Erkki Huhtamo, live performances and a workshop in cooperation with Piet Zwart Institute and Filmwerkplaats Rotterdam.

Vertical Cinema is a series of ten newly commissioned large-scale works by internationally renowned experimental filmmakers and audiovisual artists, which will be presented on 35 mm celluloid and projected vertically with a custom-built projector. The programme features works by Joost Rekveld, Tina Frank, Björn Kämmerer, Gert-Jan Prins & Martijn van Boven, Manuel Knapp, Johann Lurf, Rosa Menkman, Billy Roisz & Dieter Kovačič, Makino Takashi & Telcosystems and Esther Urlus.

Additional programme in collaboration with Piet Zwart Institute, Master Media Design & Communication Networked and Lens-Based, Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, as part of the current Thematic Project: Sound & Narrative  & V2_Institute for the Unstable Media



Thursday 23 


11:00 – 13:00 introduction + Sonic Acts team @ Piet Zwart Institute 


14:00 – 17:30 presentation and workshop Tina Frank @ Piet Zwart Institute

[open to the public: free entrance]

19:00 lecture Erkki Huhtamo @ Lantaren Venster 4

Friday 24


10:00 – 15:00 workshop Expanded Cinema: a vertical view by Esther Urlus @ V2_Institute for the Unstable Media

[closed workshop for current students and interested alumni]

19:45 screening Vertical Cinema at IFFR @ Arminius, Museumpark 3, 3015 CB Rotterdam

(The venue opens at 19:15 hrs. Please be on time, there will be no late admittance.) 


> More information on lectures & workshops:

Thursday 23:

Tina Frank, If it’s important, do it analogue!

time: 14:00 – 17:30

location: Piet Zwart Institute: Mauritsstraat 36, 3012 CJ Rotterdam

[open to the public: free entrance]

In this age of digital media the next new thing is all about materiality. Young designers and photographers are eagerly embracing old technologies like letterpress, Risograph or Bromoil printing, because these processes provide a special quality, adding uniqueness to the outcome not achievable through digital means. Tina Frank will talk about her experience on creating a moving image for film instead of digital media and about the combination of sound & image. She will show two setups for audio-visual live concerts to give a feeling of the different material aspects. One setup will be done on the computer, generating an image from sound via mathematical calculations, while the second setup will use only analogue devices, generating the image from sound with the means of an audio mixing desk, a wave-generator and a Synchronator device. 

Tina Frank is a designer, visual artist, and professor at the University of Art and Design, Linz. Her main focus in teaching is on information visualisation, digital publications and synaesthetic experimentation. Managing the university’s department for visual communication Tina also directs the biennial organized symposium »Multiply«, which deals with the changes and trans-disciplinary developments in the field of design and visual media. As an artist, Tina Frank performs live at various events festivals around the globe, also showing her abstract visual works in exhibitions and in the experimental sections of film festivals.

Erkki Huhtamo, Up and Down the Shaft of Time: An Archaeology of Verticality

time: 19:00

location:Lantaren Venster 4, Otto Reuchlinweg 996, 3072 MD Rotterdam

Traditional cultural forms have normally emphasised horizontality. Verticality on the other hand, closely linked with urban and industrial developments, has become ever more important. This lecture presents a tentative archaeology of verticality, excavating its manifestations within technological and mediatized realms.

Professor Erkki Huhtamo is a media archaeologist, author, and exhibition curator. At DMA his areas are the history and theory of media culture and media arts. He is known internationally as a pioneer of an emerging approach called media archaeology. It excavates forgotten, neglected and suppressed media-cultural phenomena, helping us to penetrate beyond canonized “grand narratives” of media culture. Professor Huhtamo pays particular attention to the “life” of topoi, or clichéd elements that emerge over and over again in media history and provide “molds” for experiences. 

Friday 24:

Esther Urlus, Expanded Cinema: a vertical view

time: 10:00 – 15:00

location: V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, Eendrachtsstraat 10, 3012 XL Rotterdam


In this workshop film artist Esther Urlus will present a closer look at the original engine of expanded cinema: the projector. Specifically, participants will explore how to work with 16mm projection devices to allow an expansion of their potential and a re-purposing of their function. Discussion and examination of the various elements of projection: light, lens, focal plane, film gate, speed, shutter, multiple projections and screen will all be explored with live examples and an up-close and hands-on approach. Participants will be given the opportunity to try out various techniques, and will leave with a better understanding of how these elements work both separately and in tandem, as well as with a demystification of the primary instrument of the motion picture.


Esther Urlus (NL) makes Super8, 16mm and 35mm films and installations. Her work arises from the DIY method. Kneading with the material, by trial, error and (re) inventing, she creates new works. She is founder and chairman of the Filmwerkplaats Rotterdam (2000) an artist run workspace dedicated to motion picture film as an artistic, expressive medium. It's geared towards filmmakers, artists and art school students interested in 16mm film not purely as a storage medium for their ideas, visuals and soundtrack, but as a material that actively shapes and distorts these thoughts, images and sounds. The filmwerkplaats works as an association and facilitates a workshop and lab for experimental film and the DIY method, and is one of the few places left in Europe where you can work with Super-8 and 16mm film. 

Esther's films @ IFFR 2014:

Konrad & Kurfurst (16mm, 7 min) will have its world premiere on thu 23 jan. 19.45 & sat 25 jan. 12.30 @ L/V 2 
in the combined program Silver 
Rode Molen (35mm, 5 min) will be shown on sat 25 jan. 20.15 @ L/V 3 & mon 27 jan. 17.00 L/V 2 
in the Artist Present program 
Chrome (35mm, 7 min) is part of the Vertical Cinema screening on friday 24 jan at 19.45 in the Armenius.


> More information on the whole programme: 

http://verticalcinema.org