nocturne
lampedusa - fort europa

2006, 28', video 4:3, black & white, silent, infrared camera, mini DV









The course of daytime obeying the pace of the sun is an increasing and decreasing identification of things. At noon things coincide with themselves, they reach their complete identity. You can say there’s nothing left to guess for, that everything is as it is because seeming and being are one. At night though, things gain a reserve of meaning in their shadow.

Since some years now, nighttime has a tragic connotation on the Italian island of Lampedusa. This handful of rocks situated south of Sicily is the closest European point to the north of the African continent. Further from Europe's coast than Africa’s (about 100 km from Tunisia and 200 km from Sicily), it geologically even belongs to the African continent.
In origin an island of fishermen, this fascinating and isolated place has become a touristic resort. Its extraordinary history came to a new chapter with the continuous arrival of refugees, ‘clandestini’, from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. With good weather conditions and often during nighttime, numerous small boats with asylum seekers head towards Lampedusa. Each year thousands of people risk their lives by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to reach Europe, the promised land. When intercepted by the ‘guardia costiera’, the refugees generally are brought to land at night, to hide them from the tourists and the local citizens. Since the local refugee centre is overcrowded, they get deported by plane to refugee centres on the Italian mainland or to camps in Libya. In the meantime, the fishermen of Lampedusa keep on finding the corpses of those refugees who didn’t reach the island and found their tragic end at sea. Or as the boat rental services on Lampedusa ironically advertise: “La più bella isola del mondo”.

'nocturne (lampedusa - fort europa)' captures the island’s schizophrenic and tense atmosphere. An infrared camera registers several spots on and around the island. The dark, abstract and suggestive images give a nocturnal impression of important areas like the local airport, the town centre and harbor area, the refugee centre, the coastal area, military zones and other well guarded areas. Human presence has been reduced to some anonymous, unidentifiable luminous dots, or to the suggestive black space in between. As an anti-image, this essay on Fort Europe wants to reflect on the way traditional media generally treat this subject.

DISTRIBUTION & PRESERVATION - Argos Centre for Art & Media
THANK YOU - Roman Herzog, Helena Desiron, Sergio Pacini
EXTRA - La più bella isola del mondo, webproject Platform Limburg Beeldende Kunsten (BE)




exhibitions & screenings

Mèdit Art - Mèdit Festival de cinema mediterrani de ciutadella de Menorca, Menorca (ES), curator Alexandra Laudo, 2010
Europe's Antivirus System - In/visibilities of Borders and Migration in Film - arttransponder, Berlin (DE), 2010
(Out of) Control - 7th International Biennial of Photography and Visual Arts, Liège (BE), 2010
Shot by Both Sides - Pieter Geenen & Johan Grimonprez - bkSM #8, cc Strombeek / De Garage Mechelen (BE), 2009
An evening with Auguste Orts #6: Some particular things (in a landscape) - Beursschouwburg, Brussels (BE), 2009
Horizon - Azad Art Gallery, Tehran (IR), curator Michel Dewilde, 2009
All Art Now - 1st International Video Art Festival, Damascus (SY), 2009
Arnoevoo - Staf Versluyscentrum, Bredene (BE), 2008
Blind Date. Sound & Vision in Private - Actionfields Temporary Art Gallery, Brussels (BE), 2008
No Place - like Home. Perspectives on Migration in Europe - Argos Centre for Art & Media, Brussels (BE), curator Paul Willemsen, 2008
Blurring the Terrain or Landscape as a Verb - International Shorts Program, 21st Images Festival, Toronto (CA), 2008
Prix Médiatine - La Médiatine, Brussels (BE), 2008
Error #8: Project(OR) - errorOne / MAMA: showroom for media and moving art, Art Rotterdam, Rotterdam (NL), 2008
Input/Output - De Bond, Bruges (BE), 2007
Fortis Young Ones Award - Lineart, Flanders Expo, Ghent (BE), 2007
Videovenster - Visualantics, Antwerp (BE), 2007
Re:collections, Acquisitions 2005-2007 - Open Archive #1 - Argos Centre for Art & Media, Brussels (BE), 2007
Error #7: Just a Movie for Godsake - errorOne, Antwerp (BE), 2007
Encounters - Stadsgalerij, Heerlen (NL), curator Femke Lutgerink, 2007
Picture Industries II - ACU, Utrecht (NL), 2007
Courtisane - 6th Festival for short film, video and new media, Ghent (BE), 2007
Kino Eye #7: Evacuation - MuHKA_media, Antwerp (BE), curators Herman Asselberghs & Edwin Carels, 2007
Eclipse - Exploding Cinema - 36th International Filmfestival (IFFR), Rotterdam (NL), curator Edwin Carels, 2007
Sehnsucht inc. - Alden Biesen, Bilzen (BE), 2006