Matching Vampyroteutis Infernalis 2015
with S.F. (Sound)
Full HD, 4:50 min
„Shipping and being shipped“ declares the voice in countertenor, „software below my feet“ as it goes on.
The video installation „Matching Vampyroteutis Infernalis“ deals with the transformation of society in times of digital revolution on the level of production and work as well as on its inherent aesthetics. Shot from the perspective of a ship entering an industrial harbor (Piombino - „Steal Port“, Italy – visualizing a mechanical and analog way of treating raw materials) the film images in combination with the sound start to create a completely different and much more digitalized narration. First just flaring up as a film-still congruent with the beat the images begin to lay a trail based on the rhythm, then starting to exhaust the digital nature of the film-material, based on a variety of effects. Even though the image refers to the real world, the quality and the cut of the film-material remind in every moment of their digital constructedness and immanent technicity. Starting point for the research on MVI - and thus also the basis for the sung text - is the book Vampiroteutis Infernalis by Villem Flusser. A text that ranges from fable to scientific study and that approaches the deep-sea creature of Vampiroteutis Infernalis from a phenomenological point of view. With this creature (the anti-anthropocentric being par excellence) we start to consider the history of culture, being and work of man from a completely different perspective. In MVI the concern is to artistically reflect on this postantropocentic dimension in a contemporary way. The hybridity of the work-process, however, is grounded in the connection between the genres of art- and (pop)music videos. The videoinstallation deals with with the tilting moment of two genres that are renegotiated in MVI. - Is it a music video in which the image illustrates the sound, do auditory and visual structures work separately or is the sound track specifically composed for the image? Said soundtrack was created in collaboration with the artist and musician S.F. in Athens in 2014/15, partly produced in a big water tank (the documentation of these recordings can be found in the fanzine), partly in a recording studio.