Dina Boswank
German videomaker
biography
participant in
VIP – VideoChannel Interview
VideoChannel – German Video Art
CologneOFF V – 5th Cologne Online Film Festival
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Video title:
“Vor uns liege ein weites Tal”, “In front of us is a wide valley”
2009, 15:50 min
synopsis
Various thoughts from commuters were being collected by giving them a voice recorder – to be used while standing in traffic jams. They sit and stand – and they reflect their situation.
Yes…, he seems to be bored. Ho, he has got something to eat. That‘s mean. He is immediately looking at me! That‘s funny. I mean, I was staring a little flashily, but he was looking in a completely other direction, and now he is all excited, because I am looking at him! …I am even not goggling anymore, but he still is! He and his wife…
The car next to you, animals and own memories get into their spotlight and form short fragments of curiosity, surprise, boredom or sadness. To start talking they could use some questions: Imagine a possible chat going on in the car next to you? What does the word “public” means to you? On what remembers you the view out of the right window?
The current traffic jam phase is … Impatience! Impatience till being fed up now. Okay? Anyway, there are several different traffic jam phases. At the beginning, no-one knows what‘s up. Everything is quite tense. It‘s about hope, okay? Hopefully that won‘t be any bigger action going on! And, at a certain point, the mood is chan- ging, okay? We‘ve been reaching that point since ten minutes… So, now every road user knows that we are standing in a 16 km long traffic jam. That means: Disaffection is a big subject at the moment!
A quite famous traffic jam highway is the Gotthard-Autobahn in Switzerland. Every July and August thousands of tourist keep standing here for hours. Unlike the common highway surrounded with noise barriers, you have some view.
The film compares these views and their reference to the old german Autobahn, nicely reclining in the landscape, with a situation of waiting and tried reflections.