OFFoff-ON: Selander / Belson / Nekes / Danino

In the first sequen­ces of Lina Selander´s new film, a sto­ry is told about the ancient, now extinct, plant silp­hi­um. The plant grew on the coast out­si­de the North African town Cyrene — a sett­le­ment of Greeks from the over popu­la­ted island of Thera in 630 BC — which beca­me the main town in the Greek colo­ny, situ­a­ted in today´s Libya. The plant was famous for it´s medi­cal usa­ge (it was used as a con­tra­cep­ti­ve and abor­ti­fa­cient) and for it´s rich­ness in flavour, which made it the base of the colony´s export. Its impor­tan­ce for the eco­no­mic wealth was so cru­ci­al that the ima­ge of silp­hi­um was imprin­ted on the coins. When exploita­ti­on of the plant led to extinc­ti­on, the city decli­ned. As is often the case in Selander´s works, the film builds on lay­ers of ima­ges and mea­ning, lay­ers that link his­to­ry and pre-his­to­ry to con­tem­po­ra­ry soci­e­ty, and in which natu­re as a prer­equi­si­te for life is one of the focal points. The human stri­ve for devel­op­ment and expan­si­on, the desi­re for con­trol over natu­re, and abo­ve all — visu­al con­trol, depic­ti­on and sur­veil­lan­ce, is always met by ano­ther con­tra­dic­ting for­ce. The natu­re looks back at us, its eyes emp­ty — a reoc­cur­ring ima­ge in Selander´s film. In Silphium this dou­ble move­ment of visu­al and earth­ly mas­tery and its oppo­si­te — loss of visu­al con­trol, awa­re­ness of vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ty — is first expres­sed in a shot of the famous 16^th cen­tu­ry pain­ting The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein. The ambas­sa­dors are depic­ted together with the emblems of wealth and supe­ri­o­ri­ty of the coun­tries they are the repre­sen­ta­ti­ves for. A con­tra­dic­ting ima­ge is hid­den until you view the pain­ting from a spe­ci­fic ang­le, but when you do a human skull beco­mes visi­ble, the sign of mor­ta­li­ty. Selander lets the ima­ge oscil­la­te in and out of visi­bi­li­ty; the pain­ted ima­ge emer­ges as in a rup­tu­re of light in the dark whilst mum­bling voi­ces count — num­bers, years may­be. The sound frag­ment is a loan from Chris Marker´s 1962 film La Jetée — ano­ther impor­tant point of refe­ren­ce. The films nar­ra­ti­ve tells the sto­ry of how a man is used in time tra­vel expe­ri­ments in order to save the world. He tra­vels through sedi­ments of memo­ry and ima­ges, much in the same way as Selander´s film, only to return to his begin­ning. The refe­ren­ces to Holbein and Marker are subt­le points of depar­tu­re in Selander´s film, as is the his­to­ry of silp­hi­um. From the­se points the film unfolds in an essay­is­tic nar­ra­ti­ve, in which the artist make use of ima­ge mate­ri­al and sound from dif­fe­rent sour­ces — her own foot­a­ge and still ima­ges, quo­tes and archi­ve mate­ri­al. The Stasi archi­ve and muse­um in Berlin as well as the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in Trondheim have been impor­tant sour­ces. Her deep inte­rest in the noti­on of ima­ge as memo­ry, imprint, repre­sen­ta­ti­on and surfa­ce is at the core of the work. The appe­a­ran­ce of the ima­ge, the fact of its exis­ten­ce in the first pla­ce, its rela­ti­on to the see­ing and the gaze and to ima­ge tech­no­lo­gy, is never unques­ti­o­ned. (Text: Helena Holmberg)

This expe­ri­men­tal short by the ame­ri­can avant-gar­de film­ma­ker Jordan Belson is descri­bed as one of his ​„spa­ce-iest” films, using an evo­ca­ti­ve com­bi­na­ti­on of abstract sound and light effects pro­jec­ted direct­ly onto the cel­lu­loid surfa­ce ofh the film.

An adven­tu­re film, a jour­ney into light. ​“This film is dedi­ca­ted to Joseph Plateau, the dis­co­verer of the cine­ma­to­grap­hic prin­ci­ple, who, whi­le explo­ring the iner­tia of per­cep­ti­on, sta­red into the sun until he was blin­ded. I made this film becau­se I love the ending of the ​‘Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym’ by Edgar Allan Poe.” (Werner Nekes)

“In Temenos I wan­ted to clear a spa­ce. The lands­ca­pe is emp­ty yet some­thing hap­pens; a dis­qui­e­ting dimen­si­on mani­fests itself in this becal­med lands­ca­pe. Nature and ordi­na­ry things such as a tree or the sound of a bee acqui­re a heigh­te­n­ed pre­sen­ce” (Nina Danino). ​‘Temenos’ means a sacred site or ritu­al pre­cinct. The film Temenos explo­res the phe­no­me­non of visi­o­na­ry expe­rien­ce, taking the vie­wer to loca­ti­ons whe­re the Virgin Mary is said to have appe­a­red, inclu­ding Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje in Croat-occu­pied Bosnia whe­re the visi­ons con­ti­nue. Nina Danino films the lands­ca­pes that have wit­nes­sed the­se trans­cen­den­tal appe­a­ran­ces, imbuing them with a sen­se of the sacred. These loca­ti­ons are both spe­ci­fic and unknown sin­ce vie­wers are never told whe­re they are. Instead they are taken on a jour­ney, during which they expe­rien­ce the raw expo­su­re of emo­ti­on and the haun­ting voi­ces that appear on the sound­track. The ope­ra­tic sopra­no Catherine Bott, the Tuvan diva Sainkho Namchylak and the New York expe­ri­men­tal voca­list Shelley Hirsch all deli­ver extra­or­di­na­ry per­for­man­ces. Across the lands­ca­pe the­se voi­ces weep bit­ter­ly, hum gent­ly or give vent to une­arth­ly sounds, sounds of natu­re, the screams of demen­tia or ange­lic ari­as. Both black&white and colour film is used and the came­ra’s cir­cu­lar pan­ning move­ments give a fee­ling of other­world­ly weight­les­s­ness; Nina Danino herself reads from the memoirs of visionaries.