“Digital is better” – nowadays this title of a 90s track by the German band Tocotronic is a popular phrase we use without thinking. It’s a good thing then that our memories of the unique opportunities offered by analogue technology are now impressively revived by this film, which imaginatively demonstrates what spaces are disappearing in the wake of its loss. Its audiovisual journey starts at Polish Radio’s legendary experimental studio, which in the 1960s saw science fiction sounds created in a sound lab that looked like a spaceship’s control room. The head-strong composer Eugeniusz Rudnik, a former pioneer of electroacoustic music, is still working obsessively at his analogue editing station, trying to create unknown sound spheres in order to learn more about human nature. A discarded piece of tape, a voice, a stone, anything can become the basic material of a composition. Even a house – pending proof.

This tongue-in-cheek portrait of the artist as a sound tinkerer invites us on a visual expedition into his sound worlds. The camera, too, takes experimental choices, translates the acoustic dimensions into architecture, dance or landscapes, offers multiple interpretations and creates a synaesthetic experience for the big screen. No need to add that the film is also an ode to the analogue age.

Lars Meyer