Fossilis
Commissioned by Hyundai Artlab for the 5th VH Award 2023.
What separates Earth, mind, body, and machine? “Probably nothing,” argues a future archaeologist.
In a far-off age, a palaeo-media-ontologist seeking the ultimate truths of history meditates through a crude brain–machine interface, neural networks, machine-learning algorithms, and virtual world-building tools. With the aid of a fellow researcher, she excavates the collective imagination of earlier centuries, re-contextualising what her era calls fossil relics: vast, invisible mountains of electronic waste buried in the tropical landscapes of the Global South.
Fossilis is oneiric cinema—a phantasmal science-fiction prognosis, an essay film, and a tale of the verdant inferno of technological legacy. It grapples with the twenty-first-century reality that most of the planet’s discarded electronics—victims of planned obsolescence—are dumped and entombed in Asia. Live-action sets fashioned from refuse, scenes shot in flea-markets of cannibalised components, 3-D assets and environments salvaged from abandoned projects, and AI images generated from thousands of unused photographs form its fabric. Fossilis thus offers more than concepts, narrative, or representation: its very production harnesses both digital and physical waste, transforming e-waste itself into an artistic medium.
Duration 12'56" - Fossilis is rendered into two formats 20:3 and 16:9
Full film available worldwide at Hyundai Artlab.
Listen to the soundtrack album of Fossilis released by DIVISI 62 "Music and Sounds from Fossilis (2023) by Wahono and Riar Rizaldi."
Film stills
Installation view at solo show Riar Rizaldi: Fossilis at Z33, Hasselt (2024)
One-channel 4K videos 12 min 56 sec, 16:9 format, colour and 4 channel sounds, used car seats and film sets; 10' video loop on stacked of CRT Monitors; sketch (2022-2023) watercolour, pencil, and pen on paper - Credit: Design by Riar Rizaldi, Drawing by Arda Awigarda
Images courtesy of Z33 - House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture. Photos by Selma Gurbuz.
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Installation view at Hyundai Vision Hall, South Korea 2023
One-channel 12K videos, 20:3 format, colour and sound (stereo), 12 min 56 sec
Images courtesy of © VH Award.
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Installation view at Ars Electronica, Linz 2023
Two-channel 6K videos, 16:9 format, colour and sound (stereo), 12 min 56 sec
Images courtesy of DEEP SPACE 8K, Photo: Martin Hieslmair. © VH Award.
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Interview on Fossilis:
Interview with Riar Rizaldi: Een onvoltooid tegenwoordige tijd, interview at GLEAN Magazine (in Dutch).