RE:WILDING
by Ying Wang & Wolfgang Lehmann
Film: Wolfgang Lehmann
Music & Concept: Ying Wang
ensemble reflektor, conductor Bar Avni
22:03 minutes, color & b/w
Aspect ratio: 16:9
2022 concert version - 2023 revised cinema version
REWILDING was Commissioned by Ensemble Reflektor and funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
The making of the film was possible thanks to a working grant from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee (Konstnärsnämnden).
Sweden / Germany
World premiere concert version: March 5, 2022 Halle 424, Hamburg, Germany
Second performance concert version: Funkhaus, Berlin, Germany (March 6)
Third screening concert version: Kommunale Kino Freiburg im Bresigau / Germany (October 09 & 11)
World premiere cinema version: August 13, 2023 - 47th Filmfest Weiterstadt, Weiterstadt / Germany
International premiere cinema version: October 2023 - 14th Strangloscope - International Video/Experimental Film Exhibition, Itajai Historical Museum, Florianópolis / Brazil
Excerpt (Trailer): https://vimeo.com/838988791
Distribution:
FILMFORM – The art film & videoarchive, Stockholm / Sweden
https://www.filmform.com/works/5597-rewilding/
Liegt Cone, Paris / France
https://lightcone.org/en/film-14473-rewilding
RE:Wilding is a joint production of Berlin based composer Ying Wang and Stockholm based filmmaker Wolfgang Lehmann. The music is performed by ensemble reflektor, conducted by Bar Avni.
RE:WILDING is a landscape film. A visual composition. The images build on documentary footage that was then overlaid and alienated in a manual process (without AI or advanced computer programs). By copying, overlaying and transforming. Landscapes are transformed into symmetries that correspond to the symmetrical forms that appear everywhere in nature.
Music and film emerged in parallel. The colors of the pictures correspond to the sounds of the music. RE:WILDING is an abstract animistic landscape painting in which nature is animated and in transformation. But it is also a suggestive work, a commitment to wildness and a connection to nature in a world that is becoming increasingly alienated, in which humans have increasingly lost their connection with nature around them. Rewilding our minds — Inside each of us is a wild woman, a wild man, or a wild child. That “inner creature” represents a mindset that is characterized by curiosity instead of fear, awareness instead of distraction, and passion instead of apathy. This is your natural birthright, unlearned through social conditioning.
„Ying Wang has retained an almost childlike joy in mimesis. Her music is quite direct, always revealing itself immediately. It does not hide behind elaborate structures. One can always take it literally. That is what is so refreshing about it. In RE:Wilding, the wildness of the music and images is that of life itself. A wildness of curiosity, not fear. What some deemed uncomfortable because of its uncontrollable nature, becomes a new, comfortable normality in her piece. In RE:Wilding, jungle and nature are the utopian "other place". No Utopia is welcoming at first. All that is new, that is unfamiliar, carries moments of irritation and rejection. Direct exposure to the sounds and images – to the “other” – makes them familiar, until one feels embedded and part of it. Like Gustav Mahler in his 3rd symphony, Wang is not mapping any specific nature environments, but rather creates one of her own. In her world, whales wander tropical highlands.
Like a sudden weather change, Wolfgang Lehmann’s images appear out of the dark, while the music gradually reaches out into the wild. Material re-appears several times in both music and images. Those repetitions and variations aim for awareness on how its surrounding and one’s own mindset changed since their last appearance. Like a listener who is engaging with the music, Lehmann’s images allow the music to unfold in new paths. By following and articulating associations of his own, the images are leading us to a synthetic experience. Lehmann’s images are observing the musical jungle, they don’t cut into it, nor are they commenting counterpoint to the music. Like Wang’s music, his images, despite their origin, don’t imitate nature, but are aiming as well towards something “other”. They are themselves an expression of this free wildness. They pulsate and breathe with the music. And like the music, they don’t need to be deciphered. They are trigger for new associations and memories instead. Ying Wang and Wolfgang Lehmann are not guides through the wildness – they enable the wildness by asking for your associations to grow wildly.
This idea of “RE:Wilding” isn’t about naively glorifying a life in nature. It does not promote back-to-nature philosophies. It rather is about examining our cultural paradigms of wildness and civilization, seeing how they affect our physical, mental, and emotional health. The answer to our problems is available within our own innate wisdom - a kind of remembering accompanied by increased awareness of our emotions, our mind activity, our instinctual selves, and of the world around us. Sensual, not intellectual reflection.
RE:WILDING was originally conceived for a live performance and was premiered in Hamburg. The cinema version is a revised version, implementing ideas that were difficult to realize in a live performance but posed no problem in the cinematic version.“
Andreas Karl
