Los Caballos De Düsseldorf, an equine collective based in Madrid, are presenting their film Fifty Fifty with live sound accompanied by a small concert. The way of thinking about doorags (an instrument made with obsolete toys and devices) they usually play is applied this time to Super 8.
How did you come up with the idea of Fifty Fifty and how do you carry it out? It’s not easy to rewind and re-shoot a Super 8 cartridge.
The Cajabaja collective got in touch with us, who organise the 16/2 Super 8 contest. They provided us with a Super 8 camera and a cartridge. We had to film and then add sound to that film live. We accepted the challenge with the idea of superimposing both the image and sound. Our idea was to film natural features as opposed to mechanical ones; the countryside versus the city. We covered half the lens, went up the mountain, and filmed nature. We thought we could easily rewind the cartridge, but discovered that, unlike Fuji’s Single 8 system, Kodak cartridges can’t be rewound. So we were stuck with half the film exposed. We had no choice but to open the cartridge with a cutter in the dark, manually rewind the film, and reload the camera. Luckily, sweating with trepidation, we managed to do so after a second attempt. Switching the lens mask to the other side, we went out to film street lights: traffic lights, LEDs, signs… We were hoping to have two images side-by-side in the same frame, fifty fifty. We delivered the reel to Cajabaja with our fingers crossed.
As regards the design of the sound, can you tell us what it’s made from and what the process of creating it was like?
We agreed to improvise as regards the film on the day of screening. As luck would have it, we were in Glasgow on the opening day and couldn’t perform live. Nevertheless, we recorded the soundtrack at home as if we were performing live, in one take. We were two horses; we shared the image equally, one providing the sound of the countryside and the other playing the city. At last, we will get the chance to repeat the live improvisation with an audience and near the sea.
Specifically regarding LCDD’s work: can you tell us what a doorag is and how it’s made? How did you start making them, what ones are your favorites, and why?
Los Caballos de Düsseldorf (The Horses from Düsseldorf, LCDD) use homemade instruments (doorags) made by manipulating electronic circuits as if they were a Super 8 cartridge. We open them up, mutilate them, add to them and reassemble the circuit; that’s when the original sound changes. What we did with the images, we repeated with the sound. In both cases, luck, chaos, and improvisation influence the outcome. We’ve been playing and manufacturing doorags for a long time (since the turn of the century) with enough experience to make it to the end of the cartridge’s three minutes. To keep track of the instruments scattered around the soundscape on our tours, we number them; we’re up to number 350… it’s hard to have a favourite that hasn’t been lost along the way. Before each performance, we choose the doorags based on the horses’ sounds and mood.
