Arr. for a Scene

Still from Arr. for a Scene, 2016-2017, 35 mm color film with sound, transferred to 4K/HD, 5 min 18 sec

“The sonic force of cinema’s most famous murder scene is investigated.Two foley artists recreate Hitchcock’s shower sequence, deconstructing the associations of aural signifiers, and the synesthetic power of sound. Jonna Kina contextualize this uncanny phenomenon — the “trans-sensory” quality of sound – within both Kina’s oeuvre, as well as other historical and contemporary works inside and outside the realm of art. In Arr. for a Scene (2017), Kina explores the structures and forms of cinematic sound – transforming an iconic image — the horrific shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – into the sonic frequencies of quirky, seemingly innocent, domestic objects.”

– Melissa Ragona, critic & curator, New York

Objects and Sounds, curated by Manuela Pacella, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome, Italy, 2019, installation photos by Andrea Veneri

Installation view, together with Sharon Lockhart, Recordings exhibition, Ama Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, 2017

“..In Arr. for a Scene we are thrown into action that we have to try to decipher–first from the images, out of pure habit, and increasingly from the sounds. Two parallel stories are playing out for us. One is an enigmatic stage. The other is one of the most famous horror scenes in the history of film. Until the moment of recognition, we remain simply viewers of the image. Two people prepare by adjusting the objects in front of them; then, they carry out a series of more or less mundane and quite unremarkable actions. No words are spoken, no music played, they are in a state of complete concentration. Increasingly, though, this seemingly undramatic scene becomes almost uncomfortable for us as viewers. Both people’s facial expressions are blank: they’re looking right at us, but it is also as if they’re looking through us. We see how the sounds are being made, yet we aren’t certain what we are seeing…”

-Tessa Praun
Museum Director and Chief Curator, Magasin III – Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art, Stockholm

Excerp from the “Some thoughts triggered by Jonna Kina’s film work Arr. for a Scene (2016-2017) by Tessa Praun

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The Winner of Nordisk Panorama Best Nordic Short 2017

Motivation by Jury: Anna Henckel Donnersmark (Berlinale), Derek Tan (Viddsee, Singapore) Peter Larsson.

This Award goes to a 5-minute long film shot on 35 mm in one take, because it shows the potential of what short film is when at its best. Shot within a short time, and thanks to the precise simplicity in the execution, it opens up multiple layers: for observation, perception and thinking. We see two people at work, creating something that is invisible – Sound.

There is no distraction, no unnecessary information: all the attention is on the different aspects of sound and how it’s being created.

It is a joy to watch the two foley artists coordinate with one another to create one layer of sound. Even though they are not looking at each other they seem to dance together. Every movement is carefully choreographed, rehearsed and performed with intense concentration. We cannot see what they are looking at – in fact they seem to look at us, the audience, while we are looking at them. Their performance creates a soundtrack for a movie that is not on the screen, but in the head of the viewer. Each viewer sees their own film in front of their inner eye, depending on his or her own individual imagination.
Slowly you start to realize that this soundtrack is familiar to you: the running water of a shower, a shower curtain, a stabbing. The individual imagination shifts into a collective remembrance of an iconic scene from the history of cinema.

As a staged documentary this film blurs the lines between cinema, theatre and art.

It is a film about filmmaking. But it is also a film about the shared experience of cinema.
And it brings us together by tapping into the collective memory we all have – the memory created by iconic movies. All this arranged in one scene and a few minutes.

CREDITS:

Foley artists ÉLODIE FIAT, GILLES MARSALET Cinematography VILLE PIIPPO Light design ALEKSI KRAAMA Sound technician MAXENCE DUSSERE Sound mixing KIRSI KORHONEN Production support AVEK / Tuuli Penttinen-Lampisuo, CITÉ INTERNATIONALE DES ARTS, ARTS PROMOTION CENTRE FINLAND Distributed by: Av-Arkki & Interfilm Special thanks: Tessa Praun, Juhani Liimatainen, Romain Anklewicz, Lasare Boghossian, Curtis Green, Birgit Onniselkä, Pekka Niskanen, Julija Steponaityté