"Richter and Eggeling were among the first creators of abstract film. Although the films themselves were produced in Berlin, the works were grounded in Zurich Dada's experiments with abstraction. The artists originally experimented with painting on scrolls before turning to animated film. Eggeling directly transposed his scroll drawings to film to create "cinematic drawings"; Richter more fully exploited the new medium, abandoning his drawings altogether and filming paper rectangles, squares, and lines of various sizes and shades suggestive of movement and depth."
(The Museum of Modern Art)
Fig. 1 Germany, 1921. 3 min. Film in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2010 Hans Richter
http://www.ubu.com/film/richter_rhythmus.html