Series: Manufracture
Title: RAM-Tetraeder: Steam
Year: 2017
Medium: video | 2-channel or 4-channel video
Duration: 3 min 22 sec (video), variable (installation)
Venue: gr_und, Berlin, Germany
RAM-Tetraeder: Steam is a multi-channel video based on footage I shot in 2016 while visiting the Tetraeder, a giant steel pyramid sculpture that stands on top of a hill in Bottrop, Germany. During this trip to visit the Ruhr area, a post-industrial region in Germany, I reimagined my father’s memory of his former factory suddenly closing due to a catastrophic fire, as well as the relationship between I and my father that often feels something is missing. This video conveys the process of searching for something that does not seem to exist and my attempt to reconstruct the existing memories.
While sitting on top of a hill in Bottrop and looking at the sky, I saw large amounts of steam billowing into the sky from the factories hidden down below. From the hill, it was almost a salient moment, but the event appears violent and abrupt. This scene reminded me of the smoke coming out of my father’s factory during that midnight fire several years ago. Whether the steam or the smoke, it mirrors the strong emotions that burst out during the arguments I had with my father in the past.
When recording this steam event on the hill, I employed digital cameras to spontaneously record my point of view while browsing through the scenery. At the moment, those digital devices became essential to my thinking process, and, eventually, embedded into my body as a sensation during moments of receiving or recalling memories of the scene. Through editing and reconstructing a new narration from the collected footage, my memories towards the silent and abrupt scene have become fuzzy and dispersed, just like the end of the steam.
