IN A BEAUTIFUL AND QUIET LOCATION
WUNDERSCHOEN UND RUHIG GELEGEN

by Lukas MARXT & Jakub VRBA
2015 / Video / color / sound / 1S / 12' 15

"Like a painting with a beautiful landscape: groups of trees, gently rolling meadows, fog covered, seemingly deserted. A bit of nature in smooth colors, evenly framed.
The countryside in Lukas Marxt’s and Jakub Vrba’s film is, in any case, as the original title says, ruhig gelegen (secluded). At first, not much can be heard apart from the chirping of birds and sounds of the wind. The buzzing of airplane motors then mixes in, and sounds that must come from the man behind the camera. This reference to a human presence in an otherwise seemingly lonely stretch of land is concentrated in instructions that one of the filmmakers calls out to the other from off screen.
Hereby established is a test arrangement that symbolically stages human intervention in the landscape. The triggering of pyrotechnic effects produces a thick, white smoke that slowly engulfs the entire picture space. The landscape is covered by a monochrome surface, which lies like a second screen between the gaze and the reproduction.
This paradoxical intervention shifts focus to the landscape as a construction manufactured by beholders in such a way that it entirely extinguishes the picture. Like the empty picture, also the picture of the concrete detail of nature alone is incapable of providing information about historical contexts or personal connections (such as the filmmaker).
In a beautiful and quiet location is a playful commentary on artistic production of the landscape and the conventions of our perception: landscape as reenactment." -Andrea Pollach

2 PRINTS IN DISTRIBUTION


distribution format Digital file on server (PAL)
screen 16/9 (single screen)
speed 25 fps
sound sound
rental fee 51,00 €

distribution format DCP on server (SMPTE 2K)
screen 16/9 (single screen)
speed 25 fps
sound sound
rental fee 51,00 €