Cinema is moving images – whether that contains the movement in the image, or movement between images (the former is reducible to the latter). Therefore, there is no question that Tscherkassky’s films are films proper. He finds footage, arranges their movement, and appears a new film (a film anew). In the words of Kubrick, “Editing is unique to cinema”.
In Outer Space, the audience is the voyeur. A black screen in flux persists throughout the film. It opens gaps, the black space morphing at random, letting in light, and thus the subject. We witness cinematic violence, the violent act by the frame on the subject inside it.
Tscherkassky employs transposition. Frames are transposed onto frames, fragments transposed onto the whole and fragments, seamless transitions among them. These are frames where the subject is in distinct states. As if the transposed teleportation renders the subject conscious of the imminent danger. The sequence continues, a violent cinematic assault commences (the frame literally rams the subject against a door!). At some point, we only witness the violent dance of the frame and nothing else.
In an earlier review, I remarked that in Grim, Takashi Ito approximates creation ex nihilo. While that meant truth on a practical, economical, logistical level, Tscherkassky’s cinema remains creation ex nihilo conceptually. His work is based on that transcendental axiom that allows cinema to emerge. Like Grim, the kind of cinema Tscherkassky creates inspires creation: an exceptional work of art that leaves no choice but to create, and a possibility of cinema that eliminates constraints, the initial conditions of creation within reach.