Rosa Barba: Artist Talk

In addition to a surprise film by Rosa Barba, the programme offers the following films by the artist:

They ShineRosa Barba, 2007, 4', 35mmIn the Mojave Desert in California there are thousands of huge solar panels that follow the sun. They Shine registers their movement like a slow dance based on a sophisticated choreography, punctuated by the comments of local people about these strange devices. The desert is not only a place that is harnessed scientifically, it also evolves itself into a “second nature”.+The Long RoadRosa Barba, 2010, 6”, 35mmThis film, too, was shot in the Mojave Desert, where Barba filmed a race track from the air. It was in use for only a few weeks before it was permanently closed, and now looks like a monument from the past. With music by Jan St. Werner and a spoken text by Robert Creeley.+SomniumRosa Barba, 2011, 19”, 16mm>videoThe basis of this film is a short novel by Johannes Kepler, in which the German astronomer provided a detailed description of what the earth might look like seen from the surface of the moon. Although Kepler presented his account like a dream, it was designed to demonstrate that the earth revolves around the sun, a highly controversial idea at the time. Barba shot her film on reclaimed land designated as an extension of Maasvlakte, the industrial port and site near Rotterdam: a surrealist, outlandish and desolate futuristic landscape.+A Private TableauxRosa Barba, 2010, 7”, 16mmRosa Barba aims her camera at a series of drawings on the dimly lit walls of a tunnel system, where construction workers and engineers left chalk markings.