multimedia installation (2020–2023)

with a sound work by Gerome Gadient

screens, used aluminum shelf, color video from different expeditions (2020–2023), ice in aquarium, used polyester glacier geotextiles, camera, live-video feed through macrolens, four-channel sound (looped 15’) *dimensions variable, semi-site-specific

In glaciological research, ice cores are drilled in Antartica and stored to extract knowledge about past climates.  Meanwhile, in the Alps, glaciers have been protected by polyester geotextiles so they can continue to function as business and tourist attractions. Inherent in both practices are thoughts for technocratic solutions to conflicts of the ‹climate crisis›. In *gel-[archive] I arranged collected images and artefacts from various expeditions, and translated them into a growing archive that changes with each iteration. The work intends to investigate the duality of glaciers and as natural archives and the archiving of  glaciers through different media. While one archive melts aways, the other one grows, becoming more energy hungry. The technoid,  pseudo-scientific installation imagines such an archiving process in a fragnented form through moving images, used polyester geotextiles, technical media devices and ice. Through this, *gel-[archive] becomes an ambiguous commentator, creating different feedback loops within the installation that highlight its complicity: the technology fails to preserve while the archives is unable to perceive itselve as a whole, resulting in kind of a cryptic «hyper-object» (Timothy Morton).

*gel- is the indorgermanic root of words like glacier, cold, freeze, frost. An incomplete fragment just like the archive itself.