Alpenprojekt

Abstract

Alpenprojekt videos register the action of cutting the skyline in the alpine mountains. The footage was taken at different sites in the Alps. The cutouts evoke the European tradition from the 18th century to depict portraits with scissors and paper. A deliberate intent to apprehend the landscape within a unique line in a reduced dimension is the main issue in Alpenprojekt I and II. To react in the face of this specific landscape as an effort to embrace what is not controllable became a fundamental issue in the Alpenprojekt series of works. Alpenprojekt began with artistic research related to the southern German region closely connected with its physical landscape. Its representation was then perceived as a memory heritage of historical facts, either forgotten or intentionally lost. The entire project is called Trilogy of the Mountains, and it is related to memory and history. Trilogy of the Mountains comprises three phases: Alpenprojekt, based on the alpine landscape; the second one approaches Beckton Alps, an artificial mountain in east London; and the third part is related to artificial mountains made with war debris in Germany. Each piece of the Trilogy comprises a series of works. The project was initially developed based on landscapes where the notion of Romanticism is still present. Then the project was set toward the post-industrialization period—and finally related to reshaping the topography in Germany after WWII. In Trilogy of Mountains, the tension between natural and artificial is a central issue, being rather complementary than the opposite.