Pruned — On landscape architecture and related fields — ArchivesFuture Plural@pruned — Offshoots — #Chicagos@altchicagoparks@southworkspark
1
Displaced Pasture
Job Koelewijn

Job Koelewijn

Jump (Adam) by Dutch artist Job Koelewijjn. Watch him and a companion surgically remove the patch of Dutch countryside — soil, ditch, worms and all — from its quaint surroundings.
1 COMMENT —
  • Anonymous
  • February 3, 2006 at 5:21:00 PM CST
  • Surgically? Not the word I'd use after seeing that clip. In fact, I reinterpreted the point of the video after watching it.

    It's about the futility of human endeavor in the face of cosmic vastness. The first person in the video - who seems to be wearing a skirt or kilt - is so inefficient, so unsurgical, in his/her efforts, particularly set against that monotonous landscape, that I thought the point of the video was to contrast his/her efforts with the scale of the undertaking. Similarly, later in the film, the guy tossing odd clumps of soil across the ditch seems just as inept, and pointless.

    Add the fact that they only managed to get a short, small strip of soil moved, and that one cannot imagine the patch reconstructed in a museum, and the whole exercise becomes a pretty compelling indictment of human struggle. But I suppose they got a grant for it, and in the end, it is a nice way to spend some time outdoors. Maybe they'll become farmers.


Post a Comment —
Comments on posts older than a week are moderated —

—— Newer Post Older Post —— Home
1