Losing the ability to contemplate nature for itself
Should something happen at the end of the pier?
Must this trail lead somewhere at all?
Tok Tokkie, Namibia |
Would a cataclysm make this place any more spectacular ?
Antarctica |
No need for suspense here
Namibian desert |
Who said a desert was emptiness?
Little Sandy desert; Australia |
Does unfamiliarity frighten you?
Would a back story improve your impressions?
Beardmore Glacier; Antarctica |
Is it plain to you?
Over-dramatized oil war or peaceful oasis?
Lybia desert |
There is still beauty where there is "nothing"
Bonneville salt flats; Nevada |
If you find this boring get the hell out!
Atacama desert; Chile |
THAT IS CONTEMPLATION
If you're not moved by the immensity of the landscape, by the humbling scale, by the subtle variations in uniformity, by the depth of emptiness, by the simple beauty of Nature... you're not ready to immerse yourself in contemplative cinema which requires you to leave at the door your conformist expectations, your need for patronizing signposting, your self-indulgent entertainment craving. CCC is the antithesis of the horror vacui, there is no fear of emptyness, by embracing the absence of oversignificance. CCC is not merely an uneventful static landscape... far from it, there are macro narratives and micro dramas going on in a minimalist film. But being able to handle the breath-taking contemplation of a simple scenery for more than a hasty glance at a postcard (these pictures above stand in for the real life location where you could experience the view over there, in situ, not just the snapshot on a webpage they are here), is the minimal requirement to enter the understated universe of time-based cinema (as opposed to action/word-based cinema). Go walk deep into the non-industrialized Nature for a while to shake off your conditioned automatism that make you find boring anything that is not instantaneous, pre-digested and dumbing down.
Related:
- La perte de l'évidence naturelle (Wolfgang Blankenburg; 1991)
- Losing the ability to contemplate art for itself
- Starting from basics all over again
- Stasis films 2 (landscape) / Contemplative TV cruise / 10 min of life at the time / Flâneries urbaines sans paroles
- L'eau dormante (Bachelard)
- Immanent Hutton (Sitney)
- Casting a glance (James Benning)
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