Landscape films
year: 2001-2011
material: high definition digital film, software
duration: 9 minutes
In the past years Driessens & Verstappen have documented three different types of Dutch landscapes: a historic landscape
park, a dike and a dune landscape. From each landscape type several films are made. A film has a duration of nine minutes and covers exactly
one year, from one January to the next. On a weekly basis, each of the scenes was repeatedly photographed from the same
position and at the same time of day, around noon. With software they had developed, each series of shots was edited into fluid
transitions to make the changes in seasons and landscape visible. By systematically computerising and formalising observation,
the landscape films became studies of the spontaneous course of nature, of the emergent and entropic processes underlying it.
It is of crucial importance to recognise that in these landscape films a conceptual inversion simultaneously plays a role:
nature interacting with the camera, the software and the editing displays itself as an universe in which natural qualities can
only be exposed through artificial means and an artificial vision. Liberating vision occurs via the making of its artifice.
The essence of these 'nature films' lies in this.
Excerpt from the article "Frankendael, Computerising observation - liberating vision", author Jorinde Seijdel, Mediamatic
Off-Line vol.11#1, 2006.
From each location you can view pictures and a films online:
historic landscape park: Frankendael 2001
dike landscape: Diemerzeedijk 2007
dune landscape: Kennemerduinen 2010
|