ABSTRACT
The biography of the Austrian artist Peter Kubelka shows how he turned from avant-garde filmmaker, a 'specialist' in his field, into a 'specialist working into all directions'. Kubelka was born in 1934, the son of a violin virtuoso. He was raised by the women in his family in a small village in Upper Austria. At the age of 17 he already despised everything he knew about cinema and became determined to make films himself. His wish was to create 'ecstasy in film' and he was seeking nothing less than the very essence of cinema. The films Kubelka made between 1955 and 1977 are known as 'metric' films due to the fact that their visual power and dynamics come from a structure based on rules generated according to the theme of each film.
