"Oed und Leer" - Eksperimenta 2011

An experimental short film I made for the first annual Eksperimenta! Contemporary Art Triennial for School Students, to be presented from April 26th to June 14th, 2011 in Tallinn, Estonia, to commemorate Estonia's designation as this year's Cultural Capital of Europe.

The theme of the Eksperimenta student film exhibition this year was "space". My project is multimedia piece using video, stop motion, music and photography to examine humankind's relationship with space in the various senses of the word — outer space, physical space (and how it relates to human perceptions of time and matter), the idea of having enough space in our lives both emotionally and materially, and the various spaces that separate human beings from nature, technology, our past, our society and each other.

The title is a German phrase*, part of a line from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde: "Od und leer das meer". The phrase is difficult to translate, roughly rendered as "the sea is boring and empty", "wide and empty" or "desolate and empty". In Wagner's opera, it described the ocean of water separating the two eponymous young lovers. When T.S. Eliot's quoted it in his poem "The Waste Land", it described the spiritual sea separating all human beings.

Thanks to James McLellan and Joanna Black for their facilitation of this opportunity, and Jason Chartrand for his excellent French narration.

Link to a Radio-Canada report about Eksperimenta featuring interviews with Joanna Black, James McLellan and me (starts around 0:38:00):
http://www.radio-canada.ca/audio-video/pop.shtml#urlMedia%3D/medianet/2011/cb...


*I'm still not sure how to pronounce it so don't feel bad if you can't either.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Oed
• und
• Leer
• experimental
• short
• film
• video
• multimedia
• surreal
• surrealism
• philosophy
• space
• time
• existential
• postmodern
• stop
• motion
• photography
• communication
• deconstruction
• breakdown
• materialism
• waste
• land
• t.s.
• eliot
• quantum
• physics
• spacetime
• winnipeg
• manitoba
• canada
• history
• footage
• archive
• downtown
• rubiks
• cube
• french
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• high
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• james
• mclellan
• oakparkhighschool
• andrew
• vineberg
• volatilechemical
• eksperimenta
• cultural
• exhibition
• triennial
• estonia
• europe
• 2011
• guy
• maddin
• my

[KitJustLostTheGame]

Brillant! But what does the title mean?

[VolatileChemical]

@KitJustLostTheGame Thanks Kit! The title means "[the ocean] wide and bleak". Sort of a quote-within-a-quote. It's from Wagner, it meant the sea between Tristan and Isolde, then T.S. Eliot used it to mean the emotional sea between all human beings. And I was all, seperation...space....whoa. Whoa. WHOOAH.

[Extraabsorbant]

It has sort of a "My Winnipeg" vibe to it ;)