gēotan #1, fixed installation, stadtkino basel 2023–2024
gēotan #2, 16mm av-performance with legion seven, bildrausch filmfest basel, 2024
«If I had to imagine a place where one can breathe in all of history, science, sociology, environmentalism, and culture at once, Yellowstone National Park is it […] Yet these treasures have long been inaccessible to many, with a protracted history of being considered ‹white spaces.›» (Nina S. Roberts in ‹Atlas of Yellowstone›, 2022)
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Description text goes here
Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is a strange place with a violent history. An archaic-appearing volcanic landscape is prepared for the millions of predominantly white visitors in such a way that they can indulge in the illusion of untouchedness of ‹nature› for the duration of their visit and forget: the looming potential for human-made and natural catastrophe is localized here in the form of a disproportionately advancing climate change, a colonial history and the potential of another eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
The film recordings in «gēotan» originate from two trips I made to YNP and the US West Coast in 2015 and 2017, two territories interconnected through water streams, from snowpack to the ocean. In «gēotan» I revisit this footage years later, trying to deconstruct my own gaze, a gaze obsessed in the volcanic landscape and biased by an european way of history- and nature-writing. Especially the edges of this personal archive becomes relevant in «gēotan»: tourists were unintentionally captured, slowly creeping into the frame with cameras in their hands. Water and its fluidity are a discursive motive, structurally juxtaposed in the montage: erupting geysers, water streams and (dis-)appearing white human bodies on the edge of the frame shape the imagery. In «gēotan», I assume that images of volcanic activity and flowing masses of water fluctuate in their meaning and creep into imaginaries of changing socio-ecologies.
The project first resulted in a fixed-installation from as a comission from Bildrausch Filmfest Basel / Stadkino Basel an then evolved further into an av-performance with Legion Seven.
av-performance (2024)
16mm film, text live read by janis polar, music/sound by legion seven
«Ever since I can remember, I have these dreams. Dreams of water. They are set in rivers or at the sea. In these dreams, I have a weird memory, you know, when the experience of a previous dream shapes the one you’re in. In these dreams there is often the sudden appearance of threat, a big wave, a high waterfall, strong currents. In these dreams I have to escape, dive under, swim against, flee to firm, unreal landscapes. Nightmarish but not nightmares.
[...]
In 2015 and 2017, I wanted to film what was mediated to me as a last frontier, an empty space of wilderness. I accepted this concept that erases everything before 1872 – the birth of the park. I wanted to deconstruct its volcanic activity as a metaphor of changing climates. However, during both trips, I couldn’t fully shake off the feeling that maybe I shouldn’t be here the way I am here. Yet, I was very careful not to film the moments that break with the imaginary of the pure and reveal the violence.
[...]
Revisiting the images now after years, I witness a changing relationship to them, and discover ways I can render different meanings. Suddenly, the edges of the footage appear and cannot be ignored. At least of what is left of it, I deleted several scenes that I perceived as faulty and incomplete, scenes that had people and cars.
[...]
excerpt janis polar, read during performance
