“Absolute” – detached and removed from everything, the powerful term suggests the possibility of unconditionality. The abstract films of Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger, Hans Richter and Walter Ruttmann that are being shown as part of the series Abstraction and Economy were driven by the desire for purist self-restraint and differentiation from other art forms.

Their goal was the creation of “absolute film” (absoluter Film). Ruttmann, Eggeling and Richter created their films frame-byframe on the animation table. Fischinger opted for a more experimental mode of production with his wax experiments. The German films of the 1920s are complemented by a short abstract film from the 1950s by the American artist Mary Ellen Bute, who visualized music with the aid of an electronic instrument, the oscilloscope.

The renowned stage designer Katrin Brack and Konrad Brack have designed a set that focuses in particular on the production methods of these abstract films. With literal translations of machine-like and painterly movements into spatial images, their work confronts the claim to purity of the absolute by challenging the economic laws of rationality and efficiency.