For the trailer of the 18th edition of Vienna Shorts, Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis fuses the big screen and the small screen, animated image and sequenced sound. The French director uses a template from the so-called Black MIDI community as the basis for Machine Synesthesia, casting the festival name in its own sound sequence.

Chandoutis—this year also artist-in-residence at the festival and represented in the international competition with Maalbeek—collaborated for the hybrid trailer with Orangepaprika 67, a member of the community operating under this name. The latter's haha song manipulation generated nearly eight million views and is also part of Chandoutis' next film about the web as inspiration for the cinematic avant-garde.

"Black MIDI is an underground web culture about adding as many notes as possible to a sequenced MIDI file," Chandoutis says. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) refers to a transmission protocol for music files. The "black" part of the name refers to the way these "songs" look in classical notation, where almost the entire sheet of music appears black.

"The scores are played on computers using MIDI players because they are impossible for a human to perform," the director explains. "The visual side of Black MIDI is as mesmerizing as the notes themselves, inspired by the video game aesthetic from the '90s. The result is a synesthetic experience that will make you dizzy."

The trailer was made with the support of Q21 at MuseumsQuartier and will be hitting the screens of your local cinemas soon! Enjoy, haha!

News 13.5.2021