TAPE
TOUR:
BATTLE IMPRESSIONS
Super 8 and CGI transferred to Digital Video, 2005
Running Time 18:15 minutes
Producer/ Director: Sabine Gruffat
"We shall paint in music, sound and voice, a complete picture of what happened....where it happened...and you can be certain of experiencing the sadness, the splendor and the history that are associated with this place."
A circular trajectory through a mysterious landscape of battlefields and strange monuments is organized and tinted for the tourist’s eye. This film attempts to question the peculiar structure, constructed standpoints and artistic arrangements of fact in an entertaining recreation of a decisive battle.
Taking into consideration that the pleasure in archeology is discovering (more than indexing or cataloging), this video revives a historical site by disordering what has already been archived. The location in question had been compactly documented and delivered via an audio guide. Audio tours (like this one) provide tourists with singular oral perspectives of a space augmented by descriptions, music, maps, charts and often a prescribed speed to drive or walk along a given route. I filmed this site, allowing the audio tour to guide me, doing my best to follow the route it dictated. As a recording device, I was imperfect. I was slow; the light changed; the landscape voiced its own opinion; the framing of my images, the stillness of the frame, were failed attempts at objectivity; and so on. The editing process involved removing specific references, names and other information that singularly described the site. Now finished, my hope is that the work conveys an incomplete record, a word with many meanings and multiple directions.
