Do machines play music? Is there a difference between a dot matrix printer and a record turntable? Optical Sound, Taanila’s 2005 wide-screen interpretation of [The User]’s brutalist sound piece for an array of obsolete printers, depicts the devices ratcheting horizontally together in a stalled symphony, inkjets repeatedly blackening the same area on the page. It is not the blurring of man with machine that lies at the core of this film, but the blurring of the spaces that each has been traditionally obliged to occupy. We disappear into our data streams, which are everywhere and “nowhere” at the same time. (Ken Hollings)
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Mika Taanila Director
First release January 1, 2005 · Produced in Finland · Original title Optinen ääni
Production
Finland
Produced in
Languages
Original title
Optinen ääni
Original language
Finnish
Spoken on screen
No dialogue
Release dates
Finland · January 1, 2005
Premiere
No release date listed for United States.
More from Mika Taanila
Other films they directed, best known first.
