Echtzeit

Echtzeit (Realtime) deals with the transformation of images in a world shaped by electronic systems. “A computer is working in 'realtime' when it is as fast as the event it is used to control,” writes Hellmuth Costard. In realtime computation, the border between actuality and its computation, between reality and illusion, is blurred. The story revealed by this experimental sci-fi film is of the love between Ruth and Georg, who exist as a momentary state in a program. Unlike Ruth, Georg seeks a “place that is nowhere,” where the past, present, and future collapse into one another. The fictional plot is edited with documentary footage and clips from television: the production of microchips in a cleanroom lab, a Pershing II missile test, a guided tour of the Würzburger Residence with computer pioneer Konrad Zuse and others, the arrest of West Berlin squatters, and a discussion between engineers about coloring in a computer-generated image of a landscape, who is the film's real protagonist.