Longing Fast Forward
In the small settlement of Kullorsuaq, situated at the Southern end of Melville Bay in Northern Greenland, climatic, political, and economic changes manifest in the vast landscapes as well as in the lives of the 450 inhabitants. Danish artists Ole Kristensen, Annesofie Norn and Daniel Plewe conceived their collaborative project Longing Fast Forward as a visual and sonic long-term examination of these changes and, more general, of the passage of time in Northern Greenland.
The project combines the continuous recordings of a fixed industrial camera, composed as a time-lapse meditation of the landscape surrounding Kullorsuaq and coupled with a four-channel soundscape, with the intermittent recordings of three local hunters. The hunters–Thimotheus Petersen, Lars Jensen, and Edvard Nielsen–used versatile “action cameras” to document episodes of their daily lives.
Longing Fast Forward evolved over a number of visits to Kullorsuaq, during which Kristensen, Norn and Plewe conducted workshops with the participants to develop ideas for the project. Using the term “performers” for the three hunters who agreed to create one hour of footage every month over the course of twelve months, the artists emphasize the unscripted nature of the footage and acknowledge the creators’ agency to frame the documentation of their lives.
In the footage, the persistence of traditional lifestyles becomes apparent: the dependence of the local population on the land, especially, the Arctic Ocean, for subsistence; the strong bonds between family members and within communities; the fostering of local identity through storytelling, music, and dance. At the same time, life in Kullorsuaq is permeated by technical innovations as well as by its political dependence on Denmark: Municipality politician Thimotheus attends his city council teleconferences via his laptop.
The title Longing Fast Forward allures to the strong desire for progress that the artists observed while working in Greenland. This desire is rooted in the extreme adaptability that the Inuit of Kullorsuaq share with other indigenous communities. As the changes in local climate increasingly challenge traditional lifestyles, the communities hope that technological means can secure their survival.
Four-channel video installation
Duration: 667 min.
12 Month of continuous recording
Implementing the aesthetics of a research station we wanted to reflect on the scientific tradition of isolated data collection as a method of extracting truth from a complex reality. The project juxtaposes the objectiveness of the apparatus with the human experience of the local population.
The apparatus perception of the landscape is the disembodied view of the industrial camera. Elevated over the village its relentless gaze collects data throughout the entire circle of the year. Only the human itself is mostly absent. Other time structures are underlined: while the boats in the harbor are either there or not, the storm rolls over the village. The frozen ice floe breaths as the tide moves. Night and day replace each other like flickering lights. The extremities of the light summer and dark winter are strong rhythmical components in the composition of the year. This is the view of the apparatus collecting data that reveal change beyond human perception.
The hunters perception of landscape is manifested through individual recordings. Their relation to the landscape reveals itself through physical movement, proceeds along paths of observation, storytelling, annual events and repetition. The orientation is horizontal: it is cultivated by moving along paths that lead around, towards or away from places, from or to places elsewhere. The perception of change is evident in the synthesis of experience and place.
The project has been exhibited at Baghold, Copenhagen, Kulturværftet, Elsinor, Anchorage Museum as a part of The Northern Initiative project and latest at Exploring the Arctic Ocean, developed alongside the research project “Understanding Arctic System Change Through Synthesis of Hydrographic and Sea Ice Observations from the Early 21st Century,” funded by the National Science Foundation and led by oceanographers An T. Nguyen and Patrick Heimbach at The University of Texas at Austin.
To learn more about the project, see: http://longingfastforward.gl/