A dazzling, poetic and political audiovisual trip on the notion of the individual vs. the historic. 
This earnest, impressionistic project presents iconic images that simultaneously celebrate beauty and warn of the violence facing us in this volatile time.


"Riot: by definition a violent disruption of the existing order.”
‘Suggestion of least resistance’ is an experimental and collaborative work by artists Michelle & Uri Kranot and composer Iris ter Schiphorst.
The project is based on archive materials which depict The July Revolt of 1927 (Wiener Justizpalastbrand): Socialist workers from the outskirts of Vienna assemble in front of the Palace of Justice to voice their anger over the corrupt justice system. 89 people are killed by armed police on horseback. More than 600 people are seriously injured. The angry crowd storms the Palace of Justice: files are set on fire and soon flames blaze from the windows of the Palace. The 15th July uprising will prove to be a fateful day: a prelude of what will eventually lead to civil war.

The animation film is a rhythmic, poetic surge, comparing us, our lives, and our very humanness to burning papers in the breeze. Images of papers flying through the broken windows of the burning palace are juxtaposed with images of the crowds as they convene and disperse. The music charges these powerful images with vividness and color. We are driven by the idea of documentation and “truth” and experiment with the artistic form and its uncanny distortion using the repetitive, stylised abstractions of events unfolding.

The project was initiated by Klangforum Wien (The Vienna contemporary music orchestra), in the context of ‘Economy for the Common Good’ and is created to be a live audio-visual performance and presented as a film projection, video installation and short film.

 
https://vimeo.com/300050497

Pressquotes:
"As different as the films' references to the concept of public welfare have become, so different is the relationship between video and music. While Malin Bång's music to "Bloomers" by Samantha Moore, for example, illustrates the production processes in a sewing room, the moving ensemble music by Iris ter Schiphorst gives the archive material from the Palace of Justice fire in Michelle Kranot's "Suggestion of Least Resistance" an energetic urgency.
By Lena Dražić, Wiener Zeitung, 5.3.2019

"Even if, because that's the way the human senses function, the optical stimuli overlay the acoustic ones, even if one usually only perceives the music as colour to the picture, one can hear the strength of the compositions, among which that of Iris ter Schiphorst probably has the freest, perhaps most radical approach to animated film images (by Michelle Kranot).”
Susanne Benda, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 11.2.2019