whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir

Toronto International Film Festival Program Book
2011

whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir
Eve Sussma-Rufus Corporation
2009–2011
Continuous – Mac pro tower with unique programming code, computer monitor

Eve Sussman-Rufus Corporation’s much-celebrated work utilizes iconic images and ideas from art history as a starting point. Their whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, shot mostly in post-Soviet Central Asia, reinvents the Suprematists’ radical abstractions through the deployment of paranoiac sci-fi film noir. Tarkovsky’s Solaris, with its perpetual sense of crisis, looms large, as does Jean-Luc Godard: the film concerns one Mr. Holz, newly employed in the futuristic metropolis City-A, a clear reference to Alphaville but infused with the sadness, horror and lost Utopian spirit of ever-present Soviet architecture. The work is of indeterminate length, generated algorithmically in real time by a computer program called a “serendipity machine,” which runs alongside the film. Made up of over 3,000 filmic fragments, some colour and some black and white, whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir displays an amazing coherence and narrative thrust. Perpetually evolving, Eve Sussman-Rufus Corporation’s exciting new work evokes the same radical spirit and willfulness as Malevich’s squares and circles must have done so many years ago.
—Noah Cowan