I. E. [site 01-isole eolie]
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Stromboli appears briefly, as though lifted by a flash from out of the darkness into which it once again disappears. We then approach the Aeolian Islands.
In their cinematic representation, movement and motionlessness collide as do the materiality of Super 8 and video. In the space, which arises as the camera surveys the scene, the landscape is studied as a sensual experience, but also as an aesthetic object of representation. The static and strictly framed Super 8 recordings of the volcano, the sea, and the island, construct a sublime beauty in accordance with conventions of landscape painting. The turbulent video recordings, on the contrary, play with an apparent directness, with a subjective gaze and the physicality of the images. These contradictory views of a given topography are tied into a strictly metric structure; the subjective and fascinating cartography of the landscape arises from their confrontation and association.
This principle of confrontation is also evident at the urgent tonal levels. Whereas original sounds accompany the video images, noises that are not clearly identifiable go along with the Super 8 recordings. At first the noises seem like the roar of waves or the wind; yet these sounds become increasingly unfamiliar. A moment of irritation and conscious artificiality remains.
In I.E. [site o1 - isole eolie], the landscape is subjected to the camera´s gaze, and is translated into images. As Robert Smithson states, it seems that "abstraction and nature fuse in art; it is the camera that triggers this synthesis". And in the end, Stromboli once again pulls away from the camera´s gaze, disappearing into the darkness. (Barbara Pichler / Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt)
I. E. [site 01-isole eolie]
2004
Austria, Italy
8 min