the missing piece of the road puzzle

2012 - video

(duration: 10’50'', format: digital, 16:9, stereo)

 

Upon walking down a mud road from the mountain we had a strange encounter with a disconnected piece of infrastructure. An asphalt road had been lain, broad, with road markings, signs, fences and lights.

Not that an asphalt road is something strange in itself, the rather strange element was that after walking down this road for about five minutes it suddenly and abruptly ended again, the path beyond continued as a dirt road. This gave the neat asphalt road a rather alien character, a feeling of displacement.

A possibility of viewing this ordinary element in a slightly different context arose from the situation; it became more like looking at an old monument in an archeological site or a secret testing ground for military vehicles. The everyday dullness of peering down on the monochrome path had given itself away to curiosity.

The road suddenly looked like a displacement, a glitch in the map of reality. Maybe the road itself had taken on some human qualities and was on a slow almost unnoticeable hike up the mountain in need of a permanent vacation. Maybe it was by choice that it suddenly found itself so lonely, only in contact with its far off relative, the dirt road. Surely there is a logical explanation, but is it not better to let the mind wander without it, a bit of conspiracy theory always seems to excite!

 

Idea, Concept and Realisation: Simen Godtfredsen, Jaesuk Huh and Stefan Tiefengraber