installation view, gēotan, bildrausch filmfest basel/stadtkino basel foyer, 2023–2024
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)
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- through rapidly advancing climate-related changes, colonial histories or through imaginaries of another eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
video-installation (2023)
The film recordings in «gēotan» origin from two trips Janis Polar made to Yellowstone National Park and the US-Westcoast in 2015 and 2017, two territories interconnected through water streams, from snowpack to the ocean. In «gēotan» he revisits this footage years later, trying to deconstruct his gaze, a gaze obsessed in the volcanic landscape and biased by a western way of history writing. Especially the edges of the footage shift in focus in «gēotan» as infrastructure and tourists were unintentionally captured, slowly creeping into the frame. Water and its fluidity is the main motive, structurally juxtaposed in the montage: erupting geysers, water-streams and (dis-)appearing white human bodies on the edge of the frame coin the imagery. «gēotan» assumes that images of volcanic activity and flowing masses of water shift in their meaning and become symbolic for a changing socio-ecology through heat, flood and eruption.
16mm-av-performance
with music/sound by legion seven (2024)
«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.
[...]
In 2015 and 2017, I wanted to film what was mediated to me as a last frontier, an empty space of wilderness. I bought 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: the miles of wooden walkways, the roadkill, the many cars, the staging of geysers in human arenas, the bisons that were poached and reintroduced, the privileged white visitors I was part of.
[...]
When I left the park in my 4x4 car, I think I ran over a chipmunk. I was shook and didn't dare to go back and confirm. It made me realize that even though I felt deeply amazed by this non-human world, I could not be there without harm, without disregarding history.
Revisiting the images now after years, I witness a changing relationship to them, and the way 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. Yet, those were the recordings that I now perceive as more complete, more telling, and now I look for them, like they are precious things.» [...]
excerpt janis polar, read liveduring performance