Ahwesh / De Clercq / Farocki

Oops wrong planet (2009, 08’) – Anouk De Clercq

Oops wrong planet shows an attractive, rolling landscape from a different planet. An attempt is made to establish contact. Long-distance communication is possible, albeit with some interference on the line. Clear contact appears impossible, though. The static appears like a veil that clouds the picture. The soundtrack of Scanner reinforces the static between distance and vicinity even further. There’s the temptation to look behind the picture, so as to bypass the interference and get to a clear picture. Oops wrong planet permanently switches between what seems possible and impossible in terms of contact. It’s a grope in the dark, in search of the place where real contact can be possible, beyond time and space.

The Falling Sky (2017, 9’) – Peggy Ahwesh

“Refashioning the intention of footage lifted from an online animated news outlet, The Falling Sky is a cautionary tale about human foibles increasingly out of alignment with the forces of nature. The bombardment
of fragmentary information, discoveries, crises, gossip and opinion on a daily basis, forces we who are doomed to be ‘connected’ through technology through a slow drain of our subjectivity. The simple, hypnotic animations of the news from a YouTube database presents our collective prurient interests, fears and obsessions.” – Peggy Ahwesh

Bethlehem (2009, 8’) – Peggy Ahwesh

Writes Ahwesh: "Working through my archive of accumulated video footage, I pretended it was found footage from anonymous sources. What began as a tribute to Bruce Conner of the period of Valse Triste and Take the 5:10 to Dreamland, with their deliberate pace and bittersweet memory of home, ended as a dedication to my father as I wound my way through miscellany with distance and another aim."

Parallel 2 & 3 (2014, 16’) - Harun Farocki

These two works from Farocki’s four-part Parallel series explore the boundaries and backdrops of game worlds, and the nature of their digital objects. Parallel II follows characters’ attempts to escape the edges of their animated world by any means, and seeks to reveal what lies outside of these defined spaces and digital borders. Parallel III reveals digital worlds that take the form of discs floating in the universe—reminiscent of pre-Hellenistic conceptions of the universe. The animated worlds appear as one-sided theater stages, flat backdrops revealed only by the movements of an omniscient camera. The objects in the worlds often do not react to “natural forces.” Each of their properties must be separately constructed and assigned to them.

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