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The two films Rotations and Projections (orignally Rotationen and Projektionen) used one of the earliest three-dimensional programs for the graphic real-time output of these images as a projection on a two dimensinal screen. They were calculated and displayed with an interactive graphic screen of the Siemens Research Laboratory, Munich, in connection with a digital data processing unit. The unit allowed interactive operation – work under visual control with the possibility of intervention in the sequence; a keyboard is used to determine the way in which the basic structure given by the program is realized–for example, by specifying the number of picture elements, the angle of intersection, the speed of the sequence, and so on. The movement could be stopped for a static image any time.






The sequence was documented in real time on a 16 mm film. That led once in a while to slight flickering of the images due to occasional frequency differences between the film camera and monitor with more complex image structures.The program for scientific purposes used for Herbert’s art work was coded by Gerhard Geitz, Monika Gonauser, Egon Hoerbst and Peter Schinner.

photo montage: dancer Gerald Bohner and a screenshot of Rotationen that run at the screen in the back during the performance.
The film sequences from Rotationen were used in 1974 as a stage set, projected onto a screen, for an experimental dance performance with Gerald Bohner in the “experimental stage “Experimentierbuehne” of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, directed by Walter Haupt.
Herbert W. Franke also used the sequences to create the longer film called Projektionen with background electronic music by his friend and acoustic artist Peter Scheffler, who was also a professor of psychology at the University of Innsbruck. Scheffler invented a “sound robot”. It converted and processed the cosmic radiation from outer space into tonal effects in the 1970s.
Click here for the other series of the work group Computer Systems:
Serie Einstein Digital (German)
Serie Grün (German)
Series KAES
Werkgruppe Digitale Impressionen (German)