The film Bending to Earth is a further investigation into inscriptions and transformations of society manifested in the landscape. Several radioactive fields are circled by a hand camera in a helicopter, while a recorded voice-over which appears through several—often distorted—world radio stations describes the materials of those constructions and opens up a mediation of order systems and landscape archives. The fields represent a sort of alphabet of an image engineered in the earth; the camera is an observer of this document and its relation to reality, not just as a pre-existent form but as a potential or imagined object—the part that remains behind the scene, the break within the narrative.
Bending to Earth, 2015
35mm film, color, optical sound; 15 min
Images 1, 2 , 3: Film still © Rosa Barba
Image 4: Installation view at Malmö Konsthall, 2017. Photo: Mizuki Kin © Rosa Barba
Bending to Earth, 2015 has been on display at the following locations:
56. Biennale di Venezia, 2015
Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam, 2016
Malmö Konsthall, 2017
Yokohama Triennial, 2020
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2021
Luhring Augustine, 2022
Bending to Earth, 2015 has been screened at the following locations:
TU Dresden, 2024
Video Ex, Zürich, 2022
Porto/Post/Doc, 2021
CPH:DOX Copenhagen, 2015
IFFR Rotterdam 2016
Centre Pompidou Paris, 2016
54th Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2015
MoMA, New York, 2016
32. IKFF Hamburg, 2016
Centre Pompidou Metz, 2016
The Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2016
51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 2016
24th Curtas Vila do Conde IFF, 2016
awards: Experimental Film Award 24th Curtas Vila do Conde International FilmFestival, Portugal, 2016, No Violence Award, 54th Ann Arbor Film Festival, USA, 2016