Leap of Death

‘Leap of Death’ is collaborative, multi-media project by composer Robert Stillman, artist Anna Fewster, and bookbinder Sarah Bryant. It seeks to interpret archival material for the ‘lost’ 1929 F.W. Murnau film ‘4 Devils’. The main output of the project is a limited edition of 50 bookwork/LP’s that use letterpress text, trace-monotype print images, and recorded music to construct an abstract, non-linear ‘impression’ of the film’s narrative. The project also included a ‘live’ version of this work using projections of the bookwork text and imagery, and performance of the music by the ensemble The Archaic Future Players.

The wider research questions for this project include:

• Can archival research be carried out and disseminated as contemporary artistic/creative work? What is distinctive about such an approach (compared, for example, to scholarly research).

• How can creative content (i.e. narrative) in one form, like film, be translated into, or indeed extended by, other forms like still image, text, and music?

• How can ‘traditional’ media like slideshows, live/recorded music, or books present narrative structure in an ‘open’ (i.e. non-linear way?)

• How can a digital format (i.e. web) most effectively represent physical media (i.e. an artist’s bookwork).