Wolf Kahlen
«Reversible Processes»

This film compilation shows the ‘7 Reversible Processes’ in which Kahlen first used a medium particularly suitable for documenting self-initiated processes. In contrast to static photographs of sections of prolonged procedures in space and time, film is capable of reproducing the temporal and motional sequence of completed procedures.
For instance, the ‘Kˆrper-Raumsegment’ (‘Body/Space Segment’) of 1969 had until then been photographically documented on the basis of the stages of growth of chest hairs on the previously shaved body axis. With the means of film -- slow motion, repetition, reverse motion -- it was now possible to show the lengthy process of the growth of new hair on this ‘Body/Space Segment’ to some degree as a ‘wave motion Underscored by the shaving, the abstract form of the body axis, which on the photos conflicted with the natural forms of the body lines, now takes on a spatial/temporal movement in tune with the body. Thus, the film enables not only the procedure as such to be reproduced, but makes possible a procedural experience even exceeding that of the reality.