Earth

Video Installation, 5 June - 5 July at the Pulverturm

Filmed with 50 actors in a single shot, Earth forms a dystopian science fiction ‘tableau vivant’ (living picture): the world after the disaster. The compositions reference paintings from European art history, especially motifs from the French Revolution. The Powder Tower, built in 1529 created a historical arc encompassing the Renaissance to the Enlightenment to an uncertain future. The installation allows visitors to immerse themselves in another, enigmatic world. Several sound versions were produced for Earth, we are showing the versions of Yasuhiro Morinaga and Black to Comm.

Ho Tzu Nyen (*1976 in Singapore) produces films, videos, performances, and installations. His films have been screened, among others, at Festivals such as Berlinale, Cannes and Sundance, at the Shanghai Biennale, exhibited at Tate Modern and at Witte de With. He also represented Singapore at the 54th Venice Biennale. Ho Tzu Nyen currently lives in Berlin.

What fascinates Ho about the medium of film is the materiality of time. In order to make this tangible to his audience he slows down his films or speeds them up. “Usually, I prefer making longer films, and films that are much slower. But I am also interested in the other extreme – films that are fast and very short. So, what I feel uncomfortable with – are films that have the correct pacing and rhythm. It almost seems to me that, when the rhythm and pacing is just right you actually forget time, because you are absorbed in the flow of the narrative. But when the film is slightly too slow, time takes on a certain density or plasticity.”

Curated by Edit Molnár & Marcel Schwierin.