The infinite rush
On Manfred Neuwirth's The sea only talks about the sea

"The sea / on a placid morning / relentlessly furrowing / the infinite sands."
With this line, Jorge Luis Borges ends his poem The Sea. A comparable image is at the beginning of Manfred Neuwirth's recent work The sea only talks about the sea, whose title (at first inserted in its original Portuguese version O mar só fala do mar) is inspired by another great author, Fernando Pessoa, who under the name Alberto Caeiro (one of his many heteronyms), composed the following lines:

You never heard the wind blow.
The wind only talks about the wind.
What you heard was a lie,
And the lie is in you.

The force of nature remains essentially elusive, and yet invites the intent observer to interpretation and thoughtful immersion. More even than the invisible wind (i.e. perceptible only in its effect), the sea is an infinite screen for projections and reflections of the gaze. The same holds true for cinema and moving images: the rhythm and appeasing conformity of the waves, of constant yet varied change. No two waves are alike, even though it may often seem so to the eye.

This makes for an ideal sujet for Neuwirth, who in his work as a media artist time and again gleans documentary impressions, that, filtered through the lens of his keen gaze, open up a surprising range of resonant spaces (often enhanced by meticulously orchestrated sound, here again, as most recently, amplified by Christian Fennesz's congenial soundscapes): The fleeting impressions of these series of stripped-down, 'meditative' audiovisual clips expand into the essayistic, the mysterious. This perceptive concentration widens into a labyrinthian plethora of approaches emerging from between and beyond the images.

In The sea only talks about the sea Neuwirth presents a three-channel installation consisting of twenty-one times three takes, segmented by the insertion of fade-outs into black, each take with an average run time of about three minutes (plus/minus 30 seconds), filmed in Arrifana, on the Algarve coast of Portugal. An archive of impressions of the sea that despite consistently static takes speak of incessant movement and change.

But it is not only the movements of this sheer endless water surface that invite us to humbly study and contemplate nature's play, that notwithstanding their majestic rhythm, in each of their details reveal an unfathomable spectrum of microscopic nuances. Minuscule and large-scale wave movements, their spray, and shifting currents inscribe bright and dark patterns onto the moving surface of the sea. Six of Neuwirth's triptychs show nothing but the sea (with or without horizon), and each one of these appears to be completely different, although all takes are filmed from the very same position on a terrace overlooking the sea. It is not only the varying intensity of the waves, the direct sunlight, the time of day that make for completely different impressions – it is the coloring (from bright blue to black grey), the raging of the sea (from wind-whipped ripples to surging surf), the placid flow of currents gently crossing the screen unidirectionally – the sensualities of the sea.

Simultaneously, these moving images are picture puzzles: While watching, one can hardly resist the temptation to classify the various framings – in particular when two 'pure' takes of the sea follow each other - from a wide shot to a golden ratio take under the horizon to the apparent 'close-up' of rushing waves. Yet, all images betray a distance – not only that of the digital camera but also of Neuwirth's gaze. His dispassionate withdrawal frees up space for the emotions and perceptions of the audience (that not necessarily correspond with those of the filmmaker, yet may nonetheless be quite delightful).

In all this Neuwirth does not follow a strictly structuralist principle, even though some takes obviously are similar (yet all of them seem to 'speak' to each other in a baffling and often surprising manner). It begins with the sea not literally speaking of itself as the sea, but also of its affinities to the beach (and its many human and non-human visitors); or to the sky (and the clouds; the jet trails of aircraft; the moon imperceptibly traversing the right frame image); above all – again absolutely filmic – to the light.

The two underwater images in The sea only talks about the sea alone convey a completely different feeling of an aquatic transformation with their breathtaking, almost psychedelic light reflections and air bubbles, here and there eclipsed/enchanted by the seething sand and mud, swirled up from the bottom of the sea. Recorded in a completely different element to a completely different effect (one is inevitably reminded of Neuwirth's 2011 scapes and elements with its five long studies of natural panoramas). And yet here too the sea speaks of itself so abstractly and yet so absolutely absorbing as if perceived through the element of air.

Neuwirth's takes gradually reveal his openness toward the differences between various sensations and perceptions. Time and again the sequence of images surprises: Some seem to be purely calligraphic, even painterly. The penultimate triptych is an overwhelming sequence of cloud banks at dusk in the vein of Turner, oscillating between golden rays of sun reflections and compressed darkness. Moment after moment this appears to be an abstract still life, despite those imposing cloud banks, and permanent changes in the sky's blotted patches marbled with streaks of light. And yet the concrete is not only present in the forms of the elements. It is, in particular, those takes of the beach crowded with people and animals that invite to follow the course of events not merely as movements in space and time (and light and darkness), but also entice the viewers to engage in studies of life's agency.

Here, Neuwirth's sense of humor – never to be underestimated – is at its strongest: Right from the opening frames, the monumentality of the sea – as conjured up by Borges in his lyrical poetry – is juxtaposed with the most banal of everyday activities – a walk or run along the beach, while the waves surge against the morning strand, and a figure moves in the left and right frames (the middle one often, but not always, remains, in a sense, 'empty'...). In his threefold shots Neuwirth likes to juxtapose contrary movements (Pessoa: "In that I became absorbed, I multiplied myself"), such as when at first the person in the left frame moves upward, the one in the right frame moves downward before shortly being choreographed into uniform movements – and then again, in the literal sense of the word, drift apart.

As always with Neuwirth, there is a lot to see despite his apparent minimalism. At times there is so much that it is hard to decide where to look (which has mainly to do with our habits of seeing that may be productively subverted by Neuwirth's essays in moving images). The three initial takes with their perspectival light cone's tip pointing at the beach, between shadow zones and the permanent renewal of the forms of waves, manifest the formal aspects that dominate the work – all giving a faint idea of the infinitude that is the sea. Simultaneously, the beach runners provide for a banal, yet nonetheless fascinating counterpoint.

In later takes human activities are contemplated as either leisurely pursuits or encroachments on the natural scenery. The second frame shows surfers forming a circle on the beach before they get going on their boards – the remaining circular traces in the sand will soon resurface in a scene that juxtaposes three different forms of sports games (and the gathering of various groups of people that each form and behave in quite different a fashion. A bit later surfers are shown struggling against the waves, swimming out into the open to catch a wave, while only a few actually come riding back in on one. Effortlessly and ironically those groups of people are mimicked in the subsequent bird's-eye view of colonies of birds congregating and dispersing, which leads to a permanent change (in numbers and constellations), although at first nothing really seems to happen. (These birds, time and again gliding across one of the three frames, make as such for the most captivating reward to take away from the work's theme of permanent-difference-in-recurrence).

While in previous films, e.g. SNOW/SCHNEE (2018), Neuwirth studies traces of human encroachment on nature, here, considerations along these lines seem to be futile. Yet, permanent change of the sea and the power of infinite cycles of recurrence prevails. The beauty of The sea only talks about the sea is also that its title never betrays its promise. The film's invitation to let the gaze wander and let it be absorbed by the impressions the sea engenders, to drift away on them as one does when seeing it for real (and hearing its calming sound of the rush) is impermeable to all attempts of categorization by way of comparing or contrasting details. It leaves us with the joyful sensation of being let in on a secret, and keep it. This sensation is amplified by the mysterious soundscapes of Fennesz's compositions. At times these are just there, at times receding, which is noticeable, then again mingling with the original sounds, only to soon be eclipsed by the ebb and flow of this maritime imagery, just like various impressions might somehow add up, yet never become a sum total.

In the end, Neuwirth returns to waves lapping at the beach, now, at night, creating a particular effect in a film that features so many variegated plays of light. In the darkness, the white crests of the surf are but faintly perceptible (a kind of a 'day's routine' running from morning to evening seems to be the only formally compelling structural paradigm of the film). And even if the sea seems to withdraw from the gaze, it continues to tell its story, and only the story that it is itself.

While the sea's infinite rush still lingers over the closing screen credits, there is no sense of ending. Rather there remains the faith in a new beginning, a new turn in the cycle of perpetual change, time and again recurring with every sunrise, just like “the sea on a placid morning relentlessly furrowing infinite sands.”

Christoph Huber