In the two months leading up to the filming trip we were busy working on a live audio visual set in collaboration with the musician Claude Speeed for the main stage of Berlin Atonal Festival. This was a really exciting way for us to work, without any of the requirements of meaning making. Our only task was to respond to the music and make a video that was as physically engaging and dynamic as possible. This opened up ways of experimenting that we would have never considered otherwise and which, because this was happening in the run up to our own film, had enormous influence on the decisions we made on how to film, edit, etc. In the process of this project we developed a physical synergy in the working process. Sometimes one of us had their hand on the mouse, while the other made commands on the keyboard in unison. Our nervous systems became fused with the audio visual material and with each other to produce a greater unified whole.
Monster as Medium: Experiments in Perception in Early Modern Science and Film by Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner
