in Arbeit / work in progress
nationalpark_Winter_2012
nationalpark_Winter from Bernd Schoch on Vimeo.
Slow horizontal pannings through the black forest. A measurement of space in times of the Anthropocene. “Everything that is incomprehensible does not cease to exist.”
In "national park" the camera wanders the black forest with seemingly aimless panning shots. Again and again it is carried away by tiny spectacles of nature like the murmur of trees or the subtleness of a spiderweb. At the beginning of the film a quote by Rousseau invokes the forest as a remedy. Back to nature. The forest as a tranquilizer. Some images and sounds in National Park appear as if they want to follow Rousseaus believe in the curativeness of the forest but over time the images develope an ambiguity that finally subverts romantic aspects of nature. The intermediate space that the camera crosses on its stroll reveals the forest as a politically and economically encoded and charged space. An anthropocentric topography that is no longer able to uphold the Rousseauian claim of a safe haven for an enfant perdu damaged by civilisation. Where there once perhaps was undisturbed nature ,in National Park the camera pans between timber industry and tree sponsorship,tourism and politics of sustainability. The uncanniness of the forest reveals itself to be the uncanniness of capitalism.
Kamera, Montage, Regie: Bernd Schoch
Musik: Thomas Weber, Kammerflimmer Kollektief
zusätzliche Kamera: Simon Quack
Tonbearbeitung/Mischung: Christian Betkes
Grafik: Ingo Offermanns
34Min HD, stereo, DCP