Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

This diploma work, with the title Represent and Consume the Land –I drove following the picture of a spruce through Sweden, is presented as a film and an essay and the aim is to explore the perception of an individual with the film as the medium. To reach this, it is necessary to destabilize my own reality, to explore myself at the same time as I study landscapes and representations of landscapes. The diploma work focus on representations of landscapes of Sweden, external pictures and internal images. The picture is a very strong medium that holds and comunicate myths, about the landscape and about the nation. Together these are myths about the land. Close your eyes and think about Sweden... What do you see? The first thing that appeared to me was a spruce, therefore I drove following the picture of a spruce through Sweden. The spruce – one type of picture, the map – another type of picture. One internal and one external representation of the same landscape. The frame of this landscape is the border of the nation. I drove a car in the border between these two representations without any destination except the journey itself. In one way a journey ruled by chance, in another way a journey ruled by me. In the film I use the same fixed camera angle througout all the scenes and I film according to a determined schedule. I film, photograph, collect pictures and record my impressions through the way. This recorded diary constitutes the basis of the essay.

This is a part of my recorded diary:
Finally it has stopped raining. Have been sitting in a café in Kisa. Very cosy with a low ceiling and Pelargoner in the window. What my film shows... is pictures, that we see but maybe not register. Everyone register pictures in different ways, and I register pictures in my way... which is a way that sometimes could be seen in my photographs. But with the film... it's so exciting to watch the film, because it highlights new parts of the landscape. The film is ruled by me, it's my journey and my stops along the way, but it's not my frame and my selection. By that I catch the backdrop of my journey and, through the representation, I notice it in a different way. The backdrop gets suddenly a higher value. From being a backdrop... the film is moving it to the front... Time to continue driving.

Just have to say that I'm lost again... these narrow roads... it's impossible, they can consist of gravel as well as of asphalt, they can be smaller or bigger... you just can't see it on the map. And all the small villages... some are represented on the map and some are not. I can't orientate... ok, now I am on a new way, but where... Just wonder what my spruce will look like when I am finished...

The spruce, is it a frozen naturalized icon of Sweden?. An icon among others through which the landscape is valued? An icon that design the image of Sweden, that shapes the identity of the country and that is sold through pictures, within and without the borders of the nation?

The result of my diploma work is a form of a poetic study. A study in which I as a subject, constitute both the one who is studying and the one who is studied.

Filmmakaren i Wim Wenders film Lisbon
Story har tappat tilltron till bilder. Han kan
inte längre förmå sig till att ägna sig åt sitt
filmskapande på det sätt som han brukar.
Han beskriver hur det känns som han riktar
en pistol varje gång han riktar kameran.
Livet liksom dras ur saker. Det vi idag producerar
är skräp, bilder är skräp och det är
vi som gjort dem till skräp. Han är uppgiven
men tror sig ha kommit på ett sätt på vilket
han ska kunna producera bilder som visar
hur världen egentligen ser ut. Han menar att
en bild som ingen sett inte kan sälja något
och att den därför är ren och vacker. Den är
i harmoni med världen, och bilden och det
den representerar hör därför ihop. Det är
först när vi ser på bilden som saker i den dör.
Han får för sig att han ska skapa ett bibliotek
av osedda bilder och börjar filma med
kameran på ryggen. Ljudproducenten lyckas
dock slutligen övertyga honom om att denna
osedda objektivitet är helt ointressant och att
det som är värt något är bilder som kommer
från hjärtat. Lita på dina ögon.