A manually operated audio visual music box with still images of road construction edited together on video with techno tracks.
I had always been fascinated by roads, and the backstage mundanity. In this case the spectacle of constructing a layer of tarmac, something usually unseen, entranced me. I took the title from a brochure picked up at a Dutch corporate fair I had been to – Intertraffic. I had been sponsored by a groundworks and engineering company for one of my two years at the Rjksakademie – Grontmeij Groep – and enjoyed the spurious conjunction of the music played in our car whilst driving over the roads made by this company.
Originally it was shown at the Rijksakademie open studios with a large photograph (originated at On-Site, London) and a house tent made of african fabric (originated at ‘Tenq’ triangle workshop in Senegal – Africa 95). Subsequently shown as part of Vauxhall pleasure. In my work at this time, I was concerned with the contradictions of itinerancy, mobility and the human relation to globalisation. Living in Amsterdam, to and from London, I was simultaneously working on live performance projects involving global chains of petrol stations.
This video, sound and image, is shown in a purpose built plywood box, like a small fridge, and the monitor flickers to life when the door is opened, enabling the viewer to also then close the door on the video. The music is from a friend – Jules Mylius – each track is a fragment of a different single in his collection of rare Hardcore Garage and Techno.
Details
1995
Credits
Jules Mylius
Tempered Ground – The Museum of Garden History and Parabola
Archive
The video loop is 60 minutes long, in 3 sections