Werner Nekes ::
Film Before Film, 1987
Media Magica, 1995 - 1987

Film Before Film, 1987
film on DVD
90min, color sound
courtesy Werner Nekes

Media Magica, 1995 - 1997
film series in 5 parts, 55min each
film on DVD, color, sound
courtesy Werner Nekes

MEDIA MAGICA 1 - Durchsehekunst
MEDIA MAGICA 2 - Belebte Bilder
MEDIA MAGICA 3 - Vieltausendschau
MEDIA MAGICA 4 - Bild - Raum
MEDIA MAGICA 5 - Wundertrommel

    In his work Film Before Film the filmmaker and media-researcher Werner Nekes presents a collection of objects in the early years of the cinematography and dignifies not only the almost forgotten pioneers of the film, but follows also the question, of which interaction of information the illusion of movement emerges. His own extensive collection comprises five centuries of rare scientific objects, historical books and visual toys from the early period of media arts.

    In his film series Media Magica he guides the viewer through his unique collection, as through a museum. He shows his historical objects in motion, because it is only in motion that their magic unfolds and that they regain once more, the charm they radiated in bygone days.
Nekes encounters the Camera Obscura, the Magic Lantern, and peep-shows from the seventeenth century, the artistry of shadow theatre and much more. And he discovers how pre-cinema research of perspective, montage and the illusion of movement and space prepared the way for the film.