a miserable attempt toward the horizontal

video, 4k, 9:16, 5min55sec, 2020
previous versions shown at Oberwelt e.V., Stuttgart; Monitorartfilm, Schwerte;
the final cut shown at the 9th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens 2021

During the Renaissance era, the idea of a vertical global order evolved as a fundamental pattern of Western culture.
This idea permitted white men in particular to regard the world as private property.
Throughout the 15th century the survey and ’mastering’ of the world was pursued with the predominant aim to exploit
its natural wealth. From then on, the progressive process of maximising profit destroyed countless cultures, species and
resources. Even though the concept of human supremacy turned into a licence to kill life on earth, the same destructive
pattern is operating now at global high speed. The prototype of the master surveyor is Da Vinci‘s drawing of the
Vitruvian Man which was introduced on order of Mussolini to a broader public and utilised for fascist propaganda.
The video uses a vertical format featuring the cult status of this image by a one-armed bandit, while a typewritten text
deconstructs vertical thinking. The water reflects delusions of grandeur.