Nicolas Reinhart "Failed Film"

“Filmfehler” (English: Failed Film) is an ongoing artistic research project centered around the archive of the former flm factory in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany. Starting in the early 20th century, flm and photographic materials were produced in Bitterfeld-Wolfen under the label agfa, later orwo, until the factory stopped the production afer the collapse of the GDR in the 1990s. During its operation, supervisors at the factories kept a collection of mistakes and failures that were made during the production cycle. Ofcial documents suggest that this material was collected to prevent making the same mistakes in the future, while handwritten notes by technicians foreshadow a fascination with the poetic quality of these mistakes. Parts of these collections remain in the archive of the former flm factory, hitherto unseen. My research for this project is centered around fundamental questions about photographic archives and their function and use in contemporary art practise. A core interest of my work is the examination of Bitterfeld’s “failed flms” in regards to their visual potential. Using actual flm material from the archive, I create analogue C-prints as physical interpretations of these mistakes. This research project was started in 2021 and will be presented at OSTEN – Neue Bitterfelder Wege, a festival that is organized in cooperation with Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Bitterfeld in July 2022.