Retinal Rivalry, 2024
(3D motion picture, DCI DCP, dual 4k Projektion | projection bei | at 120fps)
2 Channel Audio, 29:03 min
At the centre of the exhibition is Cyprien Gaillard’s latest stereoscopic motion picture Retinal Rivalry (2024), partially filmed in Munich and co-produced by Haus der Kunst. Harnessing cutting-edge technology to its full potential, Gaillard offers an expanded, sharpened, and deeply affecting new vision of the world around us. Seminal within the artist’s oeuvre, this work redefines the moving image as sculpture.
Retinal Rivalry takes its name from a visual phenomenon that occurs when the brain receives two conflicting images simultaneously. Rather than merging into a single three-dimensional perception, the neural system alternates between prioritising one image and suppressing the other, generating a state of confusion and unease for the viewer.
Its images expand and contract rhythmically, manipulating scale, texture, and depth until familiar places appear uncanny. By exposing the distortions and limits of representation, Gaillard renders the everyday in heightened detail, destabilising habitual ways of seeing and offering a hyper-visionary version of reality. With a frame rate of 120 images per second and a projection speed five times faster than standard cinema, Gaillard captures what lies beyond the threshold of human perception.
The work unfolds as an entrancing journey through Germany’s urban landscapes and their dense layers of historical and social significance. It leads us through folded time and unreachable urban surfaces — dumpsters, subterranean arteries, humid terrains, and the feverish gaze of Bavaria during Oktoberfest. Within its sculptural and psychedelic space, the work disrupts conventional perception, dissolving narrative to reveal pure vision.
The score mixes diverse sources: Indonesian instrumental music reworked, field recordings of heavy machinery, even retching that becomes oddly melodic. It quotes the opening of Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) with Popol Vuh’s overture. Image and sound often run out of sync and only once they come together: when a broken leg presses the pedal of an organ, trying to play Bach, but the piece keeps faltering.