Spring – Summer – Autumn – Winter
Following on from the 19th century Romantic landscape, this video cycle in 4 parts shows landscape as a reflection of an inner state. Perception as a seismograph of one’s own mood – very personal, flawed, and always oscillating between reality and fiction, between observation and thought.
Forces of nature mingle with landmarks of civilization and do not depict glorified places of longing. In the frenzy of speed, the moment evaporates and yet always returns – like the seasons.
All the videos are looped – without beginning or end, and seemingly endless – like the collective murmuring of a rosary or the Lord’s Prayer.
Spring
Spring as a symbol of joie de vivre, as the Romantics saw it? Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land”, a different impression emerges here:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers. (…)
(from: T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land – I. The Burial of the Dead.”)
Summer
A sandstorm bathes the passing landscape in warm yellow. Beautiful or terrible? Terribly beautiful? Are these the harbingers of an apocalypse that we ourselves have caused?
Or a wondrous natural spectacle?
Are we on the run?
If so, where to?
Or is the land fleeing? From us?
Vilem Flusser (Czech-Brazilian media philosopher and communication scientist) comes to mind, who once stated that “rootedness” and “home” are “inventions” of our time – the Romantics were also inspired by this – when man has been a nomad for most of his evolutionary history…
Autumn
Rain pattering on a window makes the landscape behind it seem strangely alive.
Is it breathing?
Is it raging, accompanied by thunder and lightning?
A harbinger of imminent death – in winter!
Winter
Landscape rushes by again (I can’t help thinking of Schubert’s “Winterreise”). This time it is the “homeland” that is traveling. Maybe it won’t come back?
The monotonous rolling noise on the old railroad sleepers sounds like an echo from the past.
