I am giving myself an impossible task. I am memorizing Deep Time. I am pressing my body onto the rock until my body starts to shake and tremble. As the waves of shakes move through the different parts of my body, I feel I can travel back in time.
Video essay is dealing with concepts of time, slowness and change from the perspectives of a human body and rocks. The big, stable rocks represent the time of a rock, its slowness and permanence, in which a human touch has made very quick changes forming them in squares and quadrilaterals. A human body itself wouldn’t win the unwavering force of a rock, but by using different tools a human can win the permanence of a rock even in a scale that the whole landscape is reformed as a human made sculpture.
Performance artist Leena Kela is performing in the video together with a headstone engraver. Different performative actions include moving the body and the rock, trembling, immobility, resting and also carving the stone. Besides the relationship between the rock and human, the video is also observing the quarry as a site and a landmark. The essay is dealing with the questions of how to act and behave in the middle of changes? Instead of carrying out continuous activities, should we take time for mourning, resting and slowness? Is the eye of a storm the best place to take a rest?
Mediabox is Forum Box gallery’s space dedicated to media art. The program is co-curated with AV-arkki.
There are three steps to the media art space Mediabox, but the work is also available for viewing on a tablet by request.