Villa Watch

Video, 16 min 16 sec, 2005

in collaboration with Judith Hopf

 

The video is an adaptation of a scene from Luis Buñuel’s ‘Exterminating Angel’. While a group of people are stuck in a cultural insitution for no obvious reason, concerned relatives, gapers, police and the media gather outside. They speculate about the reasons for the situation. All doors of the villa are wide open but no one has come out. Even though there is no visible barrier also people who have gathered outside seem to be incapable of going inside. One time a kid with a skateboard tries to enter the building. He turns back half way.

The short film combines three perspectives onto the incident. The first one is an artist who shoots an experimental film about light and shadow in the area and happens to capture the incident. The second perspective is the media coverage of the scene and the third is a curious neighbour who sees events unfold on television and goes to the site to film with his mini DV camera. All three perspectives intersect at the moment the skateboarder crosses the police line.