LITTORAL INTIMACIES I


A series of split screen video clips play out as encounters between parallel worlds. The paired scenes of natural and urban spaces appear as brief, quiet vignettes that intimate subtle tensions that arise from their associations. Among these dual scenes include fog lifting from a low peak of the Greater Caucasus mountains as waves from the Caspian sea endlessly retreat in a reverse primordial movement. In other scenes luminous, insoluble, oil bubbles rise spontaneously from calm waters; clouds occlude the sun in a re-formulation of the four elements (water/air | oil/sun); a waning river changes direction against the movement of a 1930 Bibi Heybat oil donkey; and an inverted suspended river drains from a regrowing greenhouse, while another scene shows passersby taking selfies along the Caspian above the Soviet oil rigs of Shikov beach.
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Littoral Intimacies I, 2019. Video. 25:11. Commissioned by Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan.

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Mark