Fossilis
Commissioned by Hyundai Artlab for the 5th VH Award 2023.
What separates the Earth, mind, body and machines? 'Probably nothing' argued a future archaeologist.
A glimpse into the far future: in search of the ultimate truth about the past, meditates with her brain-machine interface of a crude neural network, machine learning and virtual world-building, a paleo-media-ontologist—with the help of a researcher—digs and scavenging the imagination of the past to recontextualise and reflect what it is called fossil relic in their time; a mountain of invisible electronic waste buried in a tropical landscape of the South.
Fossilis is an oneiric cinema, a phantasmal science-fiction prognosis, an essay film and a tale of the verdant inferno of technological legacy, resonating the complexity of electronic waste in the 21st century of Asia where most of the discarded electronics—due to the planned obsolescence—in the planet is dumped and buried. With live-action sets built from waste materials, scenes from flea market of cannibalization parts, 3D assets and environment from abandoned projects and AI images generated from thousands of unused images from a personal dataset, Fossilis offers more than just concepts, narratives, and representation of e-waste as an issue, but also engages in the process, development, and modes of film production that involves actual, both digital and physical, waste and e-waste objects as means of artistic practice.
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).