In Space Beyond Me (2010) Julius von Bismarck makes use of the materials and devices of filmmaking to create an uncanny experience of space and time. From the center of a dark, round room, a UV projector projects a film clearly dating from another era onto the wall, which has been coated with phosphorescent paint. The projector mimics the movements performed by the camera, which, at the time, had recorded the film material. The artist developed a program that analyses found footage to precisely determine the original movement of the camera in terms of three axes: rotation, angle, and zoom. The exact deconstruction of the movements is transferred to the projector, a modified 16mm camera, which carries out these motions as if choreographed. At the end of the projection, all scenes appear on the wall at their correct location. In this manner a time- based medium is transposed onto a spatial medium.


The filmed scenario consists of two spatial dimensions and the component of time. The spatial perception of the viewer engages with the landscape glowing on the walls of the projection space to translate this surface back into three spatial dimensions that are independent of time. One film documents a naked, lost man in the desert, while a second film dating from the mid- twentieth century shows scenes from everyday life in a Spanish village.