I. Recherche

Kann das Schwarzmeer ein Protagonist sein?

Mit dieser Frage beginnt die Recherche für das Projekt und führt von Samantha Lang's Brown Lake (2021) über Finnboji Petursson's Cirkle (1991) zu Li Xiaofei's Argentum (2019), Klaus Osterwald's Donatus Subaqua (1996), Nina Canell's Tectonic Tender (2022) und einer nicht betitelten Videoinstallation (2006) von Shilpa Gupta. Als Protagonisten können das Wasser und der Sand ihre Geschichten nicht verbal erzählen. Es sind menschliche Bedingungen, die ihnen Geschichten zuschreiben. Die Mittel, um das Schwarzmeer medial erfassen zu können, sind menschlich bedingt, aber auch beschränkt. Umso aufschlussreicher sind die ausgewählten Werke wenn es darum geht, welche Möglichkeiten der medialen Erfassung und Vermittlung offen stehen.

Samantha Lang verweist im Beschreibungstext, dass die Idee einer non-humanen Perspektive in Film und Kunst eine lange Geschichte hat. Sie nennt das filmische Beispiel Solaris (2002) von Andrei Tarkovsky, in dem ein empfindungsfähige Ozean auf einem abgelegenen Planeten vorkommt. „We see art and film in symbiosis with the ecosystems of this watery planet.“ Lang zeigt in Brown Lake mögliche (Kamera-)Perspektiven auf, die die Landschaft als Protagonistin einführen.

https://youaretheprototype.art/brown-lake/

Für Finnboji Petursson kann Sound zu physikalischer Substanz werden. In vielen seiner Arbeiten verleiht das Element Wasser den Sound-Malereien Leben. „The sound waves coming from loudspeakers combine with water to produce real water waves and create forms consisting not of visible marks but of invisible sound waves.“ In Cirkle werden die Bewegungen des Wassers auf eine Wand projiziert, wodurch die Klangverstärkung sichtbar werden.

https://followater.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/finnbogi-petursson-draws-with-sound-on-the-surface-of-the-water/

In Argentum zeigt Li Xiaofei den Ort Dongchuan, wo die Gipfel mehrerer Berge eingeebnet worden sind, um Schmelzanlagen zu errichten. Durch eine Art Naturphänomen bei dem sich Rauch mit Aerosolen vermischt, kann der Boden nicht mehr bewirtschaftet werden. „Everyone has no choice but to struggle through this strange phenomenon—this vicious cycle.“

https://kadist.org/work/argentum/

Klaus Osterwald und Unterwasser-Mikrofone (Hydrophone)

https://klausosterwald.de/klang-sound-installation/donatussee/

Für die Installation Tectonic Tender in der Berlinischen Galerie hat Nina Canell einen Raum errichten lassen, der mit sieben Tonnen Muscheln gefüllt wurde, um sich mit der materiellen Vitalität von Kalzit auseinanderzusetzen. Im Laufe der Ausstellung wird Kalzit durch das Gewicht der einzelnen BesucherInnen abgebaut. Kalzit ist ein Bestandteil von Beton und somit eine wichtige Ressource für die Bauindustrie. „Material stress gives way to a sounding, durational sculpture, inviting us to consider the ineffable number of broken bodies that hold us up.“

https://berlinischegalerie.de/en/exhibition/nina-canell/

https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/461164/nina-canelltectonic-tender/

Die nicht betitelte Videoprojektion und Installation (2006) von Shilpa Gupta spielt mit der räumlichen Wahrnehmung durch Projektionen, die den eigenen Körper im Raum in ein neues Verhältnis setzen. 

https://shilpagupta.com/wives-of-the-disappeared/

Bereiche

I. Schwarzmeer (Ünye)

II. Magnetischer Schwarzsand (u.a. Magnetit, Hämatit, Ilmenit und Kobalt)

III. Çeken Akıntı (Meeresbodenstruktur Sanddüne-Schlitz-Sanddüne)

IV. Tiefenwasser (bei 125m Tiefe Sauerstofffrei und anearober Faulschlamm „Sapropel“)

V. Betonit (Bauwerk in Ünye)

Fragen

Wie kann ich als Medienwissenschaftlerin (Abgrenzung: nicht z.B. als Geologin) das Schwarzmeer erfassen und vermitteln? 

Wie kann ich einen Ort, der uns nicht mittelbar betrifft, nahbarer machen?

Welche Verhältnisse kann ich beachten und in die Arbeit einbauen?

Feedback: Fragen

Protagonist – Wie genau meine ich das?

Ünye – Möchtest du den kulturellen Aspekt einbringen? (Kupfer)

Fotografie - Konservierung?

Ignacio Acosta: "Documentary photography and film as form of mapping" in The Copper Geographies of Chile and Britain: A Photographic Study of Mining, Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Winter 2016

Kiki Tianqi Yu: Effortless Film Practice: Daoist Approach to Sustainable Filmmaking through wúwéi

Welche Form könnte das Projekt haben?

„In Kyoco Taniyama's practice, the concept of ubiquity - being situated in a particular context, in a particular place - is omnipresent. Her installations are multi-layered interpretations of this interrelation between places, people, and identities with a view to culture, history, and everyday life in a particular place. […]. This project is part of a small multilingual visual identity, used for printed announcement materials and a larger publication as part of the exhibition „stone will flow, leaves will sink“, shown at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin from 17 Jan – 19 Feb 2019. The multi-layered identity has been developed by experimenting with different printing techniques and different paper types. In total 3 different paper types have been used though-out, including a recycling paper in combination with silkscreen print. The contradiction of printing on cheaply produced recycling paper with a precious printing technique, transfers Taniyama’s concept of concealment and revelation into the context of graphic design and print.“

https://www.im-burrow.com/projects/stone-will-flow-leaves-will-sink

Entwürfe

Skizze 1. Gegenstand Installation in Potsdam

Skizze 2. Gegenstand Installation in Potsdam

II. Umsetzung

Ünye

1. Behind the scenes

2. Orhan Güler (Geophysiker) vor seinem Laden

3.-6. Digitalisierte Farbfilm-Abzüge

Videostudio FH Potsdam

Behind the scenes erste Kameraperspektive: Kamera mit Grid oben befestigt, Folie vor dem Objektiv mit Klebeband befestigt.

Behind the scenes der zweiten Kameraperspektive: Sand auf transparenter Acrylplatte.

III. Das finale Projekt

Video

Link zum Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wJhp2taZ636brlK2cOb9pdiXorStHBPR/view?usp=sharing

Booklet

Selbstgestaltetes und -gebundenes (Französische Kreuzbindung) Booklet mit Projekttext, abgedruckten Analogfotografien und Videostills. Format orientiert sich am kubischen Kristallsystem von Magnetite Fe3O4.

Projekttext

While one force leads to death, the other one promises cure

Last year in mid-September, I visited members of my family in Ünye, Türkiye. Ünye is a municipality in the province of Ordu by the Black Sea. In my mind, I had the question of whether the Black Sea could be a protagonist for my project. The general idea was to engage with the Black Sea and to consider aspects of the mediality of its environment.

Before my journey to Ünye, I encountered more or less coincidentally two approaches that helped me to interact with the Black Sea. The first one refers to Ignacio Acostas analysis of Alfredo Jaars deep engagement with his photo subjects. [a] Acosta describes Jaars strategies rather slow paced compared to the mass production in photojournalism. This form of deep engagement can be achieved through research and observation before the production of the photographic work. The second one is the concept of wúwéi introduced by Kiki Tianqi Yu in her lecture about Daoist filmmaking. [b] At the core of Daoism is Dao, which is given in the Daodejing as ‘way-making.’ Yu states that cinema as Dao takes ‘effortless action’ (wúwéi) and thus also enables engagement. For the encounter with the Black Sea, I needed a little effortless action. It was essential to remain open for unforeseeable and new impulses. In the end, it is the combination of the two approaches that inspired me during the creation of this project.

In my younger years, I heared warnings about swimming in the Black Sea each time I visited. Family members remembered me of the fact that every year people die in the water. The reason for many deaths each year are the so called çeken akıntılar. Çeken akıntılar are strong streams that occur in areas where seabed structure takes the form of sand dune-slit-sand dune moving from shallow water to deep water. The popular belief is that the streams pull people to the bottom where they drown. [c] According to the coast guard command, drowning accidents happen because people who are caught by a stream are pulled out of the shallow water into the open sea and try to return back to the shore so that they are exhausted and can no longer stay afloat. Alongside this danger, the tourism office and particularly one key figure in the townscape of Ünye promote for a beach visit. While the water streams can lead to death, it is said that the magnetic black sand on the beach has a curing effect because of the magnetite it contains. People from nearby cities came to Ünye in the past to find solutions to their pains and they sought natural remedies and buried themselves in the magnetic black sand.

Magnetite (FE3O4) is an iron oxide with a matt metallic lustre. It has black natural color. Magnetite is formed, for example, during the crystallisation of magmatic rocks. It is one of the most strongly magnetic minerals. Smallest magnetite crystals are found in sensory organs of migratory birds for orientation in the earths magnetic field. In doing so, their magnetic sense kind of measures the angle between the local direction of the magnetic fi eld lines and the vertical. When I was told about the frequencies between magnetite in the human body and the sand on the beach at Ünye, I wonderer what was meant by that. To get a rough idea, I should imagine the invisible infra-red light that is used to transmit the control impulses from the remote control to the TV. By the time I read about migratory birds that have magnetic crystals in sensory organs, I could imagine that there are corresponding frequencies between the human body and the magnetic black sand on the beach. For me, it is not about defining a certain truth. It was much more a matter for me to approach the Black Sea as a protagonist out of my geological ignorance and technical limitations. I believe that the Black Sea partly appeared to me in its magnetic quality.

[a] Ignacio Acosta, The Copper Geographies of Chile and Britain: A Photographic Study of Mining, Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Winter 2016.

[b] Kiki Tianqi Yu, Cinematic ideorealm and cinema following Dao: theorizing film aesthetics through Daioism, Screen, Volume 64, Issue 4, Winter 2023, 462-84.

[c] Sahil Güvenlik Komutanlıgı, 2021, http://www.unye.gov.tr/ceken-

akinti-merkezicerik.