in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ } Pt. II
Pt. II
Moving image, Installation
Single-channel video, 6'29"
Glass tanks, vegetable glycerin for e-liquid, agar jelly, LED light,
polyurethane sheets, plastic trays, paper, UV light, chains, glass panes, monitor
Dimensions Variable
Feb 2020
Direction, Editing & Colour Grading by Vy L
Performance Documentation Footage by Sian Hedberg
Filmed at 13festivalen 2020 in Gothenburg, Sweden
“N16 Drift”︎
Performed by Bliss Signal
Written and produced by Bliss Signal
Published by True Panther Records
Licensed courtesy of True Panther Records
The narrative film and installation explore the beauty and tension of interspecies networks and negotiation of the performative human/nonhuman body, integrating performance documentation, fictional narratives, and found footage from documentaries on aquaculture and oceanic life. It considers the notion of the 'umwelt' and milieu as an assemblage instead of a closed system. The audience is invited to closely inspect and touch the amorphous materials at their different fundamental states of matter, forming sensorial relations with the materials beyond the scope of seeing and being seen.
In a dark subterranean space in the year 2135 on a distorted timeline as a result of excessive time leaps, plagued by existential ennui, a character finds solace in a thought experiment consisting of ritualistically changing the water for a jellyfish by moving it using a small fishbowl among water of slightly varying salinities in a row of seven small acrylic tanks (as SFX prop jellyfish are used, no life forms were harmed during the production). During certain intervals succumbing to entanglement and destruction, organic derivatives slowly take its place, evoking different stages and problematics of biomaterial transmutation beyond the boundaries of life and death.
This moving image installation is a continuation of in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ } (2019), it experiments with and furthers the form and themes explored in the earlier exhibition.
This moving image installation is a continuation of in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ } (2019), it experiments with and furthers the form and themes explored in the earlier exhibition.
Film Stills
© Vyvyan y. L. | 2022