Around its own axis
Video work
16:9 full HD, 50p, 11:15 min
2020
Around its own axis showcases the infinite, repetitive rhythm of the automated Dutch agricultural landscape. In this video work, machines perform a dance, while the camera transports the viewer through landscapes of large displacements. Silent, monumental images evoking tranquillity are continually interspersed with more dynamic actions. Using the jargon of her profession, choreographer Pauline Roelants guides the viewer through the scenes — like a sports commentator — providing a blow-by-blow description of the movements of the machines and products. In doing so, the stillnesses and the silences of the landscapes, along with the impulsive actions and errors of the machine become an integral part of the choreography. Examining and describing the landscapes this way minimises the distance between creative man and pragmatic machine. Roelants’ movement analysis also reveals a minor dissonance: not every industrial act is perfect. A realisation both comforting and slightly comical. By approaching the movements of the machines and products like a dance, van Dupen reveals the poetry of a previously unnoticed landscape.

Cinematographer and film editor

Mirte van Duppen

Comments by choreographer

Pauline Roelants

Sound

Benedikt Wöppel

Color grading

André Badjebeir

Translation

Paulien Mandos

Edit coach

Gabrielle Provaas

Dancers breeder, Florensis, Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht en Dinteloord - orchids grower, Opti-flor, Monster - goat farmer, van Tilburg, Oude Dongen - tulip grower, Bloem-kwekerij Michiel Smit, Hensbroek - cow farmer, Christian en Sanne Klein Koerkamp, Lettele - plant grower, Pligt Professionals, ’s-Gravenzande

Pink light
light plates fern grower Vitro Plus
2022
This distinctive light, with its fairy-tale pink glow, is the minimal light necessary for crops to grow. Plants only require red and blue spectra, not white light (which contains all the colours of the spectrum). Fewer colours translate into fewer costs, thereby allowing greenhouse growers to reduce their expenses. The lighting panels, floating over the ferns, mimic this diffuse light by spreading this ‘idea of sunlight’ as evenly as possible over the plants, like a blanket. The light source is on the side of the panels, whose laser pattern distributes the light in conjunction with a reflection plate.

EXHIBITION
AgriValley as guest at beyond smart home
UMZU, Papenstrasse 6, Bremen (DE)
buffet 21.10.2023, 19:00
coffee 22.10.2023, 14:00 - 18:00

exhibition made possible by
Vitroplus

AgriValley is made possible by
Creative Industries Fund NL, Impulsgelden Provincie Noord-Brabant, Kunstloc and Tilburg Makersfonds