GPC STREAMS (#3) A Succession of Waves
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GPC Online Screen
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In a 2014 lecture, Stefan Helmreich stated that waves are entities that “flicker between reality and representation.” Waves are arguably one of the most complicated objects that exist in the world: their scientific observation and measurement depends on a slippery amalgamation of recorded events, technological apparatuses, as well as mathematical computations and statistical calculations. This complexity, according to Helmreich, proves that waves are as much physical as cultural objects. It is in the wave where we can see how knowledge is always in-process, always only partial, and intrinsically influenced by prevailing politics and technologies.
"A Succession of Waves" embraces the impossibility of comprehending the inexhaustible swell by presenting three attempts to represent it through film. First, in Obholzer’s "2 days left", the wave has been constructed artificially: an anthropogenic leisure trick captured through a rather abstract succession of moving images. In the second attempt, Wang’s "One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean", a hasty succession of scenes becomes overwhelming, a flood that reminds us of infinite scrolls and latent threats. The last example, "The Ship is Sinking" by Stracke & Seibt, goes back to a moment of quietness, where the "The Raft of the Medusa", a magnificent symbol of human’s wrecked horizon, is reenacted by collapsing two planes and materialities into one.
Program
■ SIMONA OBHOLZER: 2 DAYS LEFT
AT, 2020, 07:37 min
With a minimal yet detailed approach, Obholzer’s artistic practice carefully examines anthropogenic apparatuses that attempt (but fail) to imitate environmental realities and events. For "2 days left" Obholzer documents the machine-made waves of a surf pool. Her succession of close-ups compose a meditation on the artificialities needed for recreating an experience of the “natural”.
■ YUYAN WANG: ONE THOUSAND AND ONE ATTEMPTS TO BE AN OCEAN
FR, 2020, 11:30 min
Composed by a quick and rhythmic montage of found footage, "One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean" offers us an overwhelming representation of the prevailing logics of image consumption. This literal flood of images, which is accompanied by an impetuous soundtrack, achieves an uncanny and hypnotic atmosphere. Jumping from macro-views of watery happenings to microscopic aqueous events, this audiovisual whirlpool inundates the spectator with a meticulous chaos and its moments of amazement, fury and self-reflection.
■ CLEA STRACKE & VERENA SEIBT: THE SHIP IS SINKING
DE, 2014, 07:40 min
For "The Ship is Sinking" Stracke & Seibt take the painting "The Raft of the Medusa" by Theodore Gericault as its main protagonist. This renowned masterpiece depicts the aftermath of the 1816 French Royal Navy wreck, in which a ship ran aground off the coast of Senegal, and whose very few survivors were found on a raft. "The Ship is Sinking" updates this historical artwork in a contemplative but critical manner, by suggesting the wave as a timeless point between sinking and floating, death and life, for many bodies since time immemorial.