24/7 (Into the Direction of Light)

Light, landscape, camera: 24/7 seems to have been created with the pure ingredients of filmmaking. The picture´s blackness at the beginning turns into ever-lightening shades of blue, eventually becoming a view of the sea. The line of the horizon divides it into two halves: water and sky, which change constantly in fast motion, then return to black (the black of night). Shot with a static camera over a period of seven days, 24 hours each, 24/7 uses digital technology to continue the tradition of the branch of experimental film dedicated to exploring the mechanisms of cinematographic representation, using landscapes and their topographic features or natural phenomena (light, weather).
This particular case involves portrayal of a subject and illusionistic space which are dealt with in a new way. While 24/7 refers to something that in fact exists, something we can cling to, in the course of the video we notice that the direction taken by the change is uncertain. It seems to move along the picture´s horizontal axis from left to right, though also from background to foreground at the same time, and in the transitions between day and night especially a kind of pull is developed which seems to literally unfold the space.
These constant shifts and uncertainties with regard to the viewer´s standpoint are references to the artificiality of what is being portrayed. This (natural) space is, in fact, artificial, having been assembled through manipulation of the prevailing conditions during shooting with digital equipment, with the aid of the slitscan process. As a result 24/7 becomes a subtle study of the limitations of our perception: In the end we can see only the things we are familiar with. (Claudia Slanar)

Translation: Steve Wilder



A static camera pointing at the seaside renders a slit-scan sequence of the very same point on the horizon for a full week (24 hours, 7 days). By assembling the raw material (that just moves in time) back into single images a "virtual" seaside landscape is constructed. Animating this material to video creates a unique time-lapse sequence of a seascape that tangles the relations of space and time.
These images were recorded in November 2007 on Oros Harasson - a hill near Finikas on the Greek island Syros. Oros Harasson means: the mountain that inscribes the direction of light. The focus point of the camera loosely followed this direction to the point where the sun sets down onto the horizon during winter solstice... (production note)

go to DEMO VERSION of the film on the artist´s homepage.