films

Ahuehuete

The Ancient Water Tree

Video, color, sound, 6 min
2022, Mexico

Director, Camera, Editing

Raphael Reichl

Voice

Angel Villanueva

The village of Tule is located in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. This small town carries within a story of remembrance of the Mixe and Zapotec indigenous identity. Under the glory of a tree, the so-called Ahuehuete, lies an over two thousand year old history. Through its presence, the myth of its own birth survives across generations. The tale—told by Angel Villanueva—not only preserves the cultural heritage that is revived through storytelling, it also counteracts the suppression of indigenous identity and supports the resistance process that began since the colonisation about 500 years ago.

View of the group exhibition: Status in der Feldforschung (2), Foto Wien 2022, Paulusplatz 5, Vienna

Photos by Raphael Reichl

P.A.H. (Sweden Aid) [Film]

Video (16 mm to digital), color, sound, 1 min
2019

A humorous to ironic connection evolves in the collages of Raphael Reichl, who combines the context of origin of the Per-Albin-Hansson housing estate with the history of the Austrian sweet Schwedenbomben (Swedish bombs). By interweaving two such specific and seemingly alien elements, which he projects onto the housing estate, he breaks up historical narratives. The fragmented filmic material questions reality, documentation and transmission.

(written by Clara Hofmann)

t t t touch me

Super 8 (blow-up 16 mm), colour, silent, 3 min
2017

Typing, pressing, striking, swiping—finger movements that are not carried out on the touchscreen of a smartphone, but instead, on naked skin. Raphael Reichl investigates the transformation of perception and communication in the digital era—on analogue film. A haptic visual experience, which makes tangible, the loss of analogue qualities.

Raphael Reichl explores the extent to which the digital penetration of all areas of life causes the transformation of needs, communication and perception. The fact that Reichl registers the gestures of everyday life on analogue film, the touches that seem to have lost of sensuality, is more than a statement: t t t touch me becomes a haptic visual experience that makes the loss of analogue qualities in the digital age tangible in the flesh.

(Written by Michelle Koch, Diagonale 20')

Filmstills

Exhibition view: Rituals IV—Body, Fotogalerie Vienna

Photos by Fotogalerie Wien

12 24

16 mm, colour, silence, 3 min
2017

Leave the body in complete darkness,
gentle fingertips remain in need,
driven, the reel full of thoughts,
born in the camera by light,
sweeps 12 or 24 times over the eye,
before the pencil over the paper.

¡Vení Ve!

sounds, sayings and gestures

Video, colour, sound, 4 min
2016, Nicaragua

Director

Raphael Reichl

Camera

Gabriel Serra

Editing

Raphael Reichl

Collaboration

Amos Abdias, Waleska R. Cisne, Stalin Ocampo, Róger Ortíz, Hamilton Reyes, Edgard Ruiz Roblez, Roberto Sandino

Nicaraguan idiosyncrasies, such as words, gestures and characteristics of behaviour, shaped artist Raphael Reichl's integration process on site. From everyday greetings to terms that have a different context of meaning, Reichl gradually explored the Nicaraguan slang. Together with friends from Granada, Nicaragua, he formed a dialogue of his own context and affective understanding of the nicaraguan slang.