HD video, 2016, stereo sound, 3:33, 2016 excerpt 1:30
‘Road trip to the Dutch mountains’ is a journey by car. The video is a pilgrimage to the site of a Google datacentre that is being built in Northern Netherlands, near windturbines, powerplants and submarine transatlantic communications cables.
The viewer is taken on a ride through the Netherlands from a city (Rotterdam) via highways and industrial areas (Eemshaven) to the sea. The images remind us of Google street view perspective, but the panorama is attained in a much more anarchist, DIY manner. A slit scan camera, particularly used in panoramic photography* was used as a primitive black and white recording device. It was mounted on top of a car and took only 50 frames per hour. Every movement of the camera, however small, creates a ripple on the horizon. The result is a mix of harshly realistic and imaginary landscapes that are as rational as they are surrealistic.
The accompanying soundtrack consists of layered noises of flatbedscanner, cars and renaissance music from the early fifteenth century, well before transatlantic trading *. The musical harmonisation is audible above the other sounds, and sort of drowns in the recurrent electronic drone that underscores the roadscape.
The title pays tribute to a series of photographs by dutch conceptual artist Jan Dibbets*.
* 1845 invented by Joseph Puchberger
* 1433 by Dufay: ‘Supremum est mortalibus bonum’ an ode to Peace.
*Jan Dibbets 1971: “The title ‘Dutch Mountain’ used for a series of photographs (and video) was first coined more or less as a joke and of course refers to the apparent undulations of a flat landscape.”
World premiere at International Fimfestival Rotterdam 2016
Distribution by LiMa Amsterdam http://www.li-ma.nl
Made possible with financial support from the Mondriaan Fund.
