Gustav Hellberg

Things That Get In Our Way, HD, 2:35:1, 17:20 min
1/7

VIDEO | Things That Get In Our Way

Things That Get In Our Way
2016

HD video, 17:14 mins, Aspect ratio 2.35.1
Videography: Per-Ivar Lindekrantz
Location: Alvaret, Öland, Sweden


In the video you will see a person, carrying a wooden create into a vast flat landscape. An instrument of sorts is unpacked and mounted on its tripod. A light can be seen flashing from the device. The video is made in chapters. Intertitles present text bits about possession and minerals. The video was shot on lands rich with alum slate and uranium. 

The video pivots around an experimental device, which resembles some sort of scientific instrument. It produces a constantly altering light as well as clicking sound, which we might recognise from radiation measuring instruments. Through readings, by a geiger counter and a micro processor, the light and the sound relates to surrounding radiation. The geiger counter reads alpha-, beta- and gamma radiation.

The video unpacks the way in which our relation to and conception of radiation is grounded in myth-based discourses. The artwork challenges possible understandings which seek to explain why people still seem unable to understand their surroundings without mythic intervention.

Things that Get in Our Way, Mk 2 | installation →