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."

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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).

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