Video Installation
55″ loop
8 x 3 meter projection
2 projector, 3-channel video
Stereo sound
2002
Kap Atlantis is the last part of the Trilogy begun in 1997. In this final piece, existential dimensions of destructive legacies between generations are explored.
The title refers to a place in Harry Martinson’s epic tale Aniara, from 1956. In this dystopic vision of the future, 8,000 refugees find themselves travelling through space on an unknown trajectory towards Kap Atlantis, an imaginary place on Earth which has become uninhabitable. The text is read by actor Ulf Palme, in an original voice recording recuperated from a lost archive.
Kap Atlantis shows new film material that refers to both Christianity and Islam, as represented by readings of Koranic surahs sung by Abdullah Ibrahim and a citation from the First Book of Moses. This last sound reference is indeed the message the crew of the Apollo spaceship sent back to Earth as a Christmas greeting in 1968. Lastly, Kap Atalantis also alludes to 9/11, and links it back to the apocalyptic atmosphere created by the appearance of the atom bomb and its effects into the 50s, thus looping the narrative back to the decade in which the artist was born and when Aniara was written.
The non-linear and rhythmic narrative style questions the chronology of events and our idea of what history is and how it is told. Old and new filmic material, merging image, text and sound form a dense narrative about history and memory, collective and personal experiences against the backdrop of masculinity, power and violence.
Kap Atlantis is the third and last part of a trilogy, see also: