AQUAMARINE

"Aquamarine" means not only the well-known light blue hue, but also, what the color is based on, the mineral beryl. Translated literally: the color of the sea. The film AQUAMARINE takes a constellation of (blue-green) color, maritime, liquid, and of course, mineral, as a starting point for setting the cited components in a jolting, undulating balance based on the track of the same name by the group MOPCUT. The visual starting material comprises views of the ocean around the island of Gomera, filmed from above, in close-up, or from a ship. Pastel blue shimmering white crests, but also nocturnal shots of the horizon are set into convulsions and (time-)bends to the music—for this, Billy Roisz and Dieter Kovačič employed a specially written program for defamiliarization of the frame rate. The "liquefaction of the liquid" is taken to such extremes that—as soon as the guttural singing begins—a spectral fluttering and untenable fluctuation overcome the image space. For a while, the ruffle of waves, permeated by all manner of chimera, heaves in an ominous black and white. Set to the increasingly more tightly timed sound texture are flash like illuminations and shadings that continually steer the gaze to the abysmal light blue. Slowly, a bottom is peeled from the (water) layers, which at the same time, signifies spectral infiltration and medial growth in structure. In continuously new, additional color shades, a type of mineral framework gradually becomes visible behind the shimmering surface. The digital "crystallizes" here layer by layer and at the same time, keeps on flowing. A symbol referring to the subtle stabilization of our seeing, which has meanwhile become accustomed to fluid images. (Christian Höller)

Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt


AQUAMARINE is a video by Billy Roisz and Dieter Kovačič for the track of the same name by trio MOPCUT (Lukas Koenig, Audrey Chen, Julien Desprez).