Poised in the Infinite Ocean (2004)

Three channel synchronized PAL video, two channel sound, 5’ 20”

Across three video screens a story unfolds. Night descends. A lighthouse flashes its warnings across an increasingly wild sea. A large old house stands against the storm. A city shuts itself up as the elements rage. Out on the ocean, in the midst of the storm, a ship sails towards its doom. We know this because we hear a narration concerning a ship making its way through the Bay of Biscay. This is the south west coast of France. Near Biarritz. The narration tells us of an old, un-seaworthy cargo ship making its way north to the bay and getting caught in a storm. This storm. We hear of the ship slowly falling apart. We do not see it. The images are full of impending doom. There are rocks just under the fluid turbulence of the water. Against these fixities we know the ship is moving. It has moved from the south. It contains stories that transcend space among its cargo. And yet the ship is also a place. Places are supposed to be richer, more profound, versions of locations. But having a location does not mean being still. A ship has a location. Now a GPS system would be able to tell us where it was. But not then. This moving location is also a moving place. Particular forms of sociality mark ship life. Levi-Strauss told us this on his jour- ney to Latin America. Malinowski noted the boat born placeness of the Melanesian seafarers. Foucault described the “ship of fools” as a special place – a heterotopia, or place outside of place that is both sealed from the world and yet part of the “infinity of the sea” – the Infinite Ocean. As the narrator reminds us, the ship “is something of a fantasy, floating free of the realities at sea.” Tim Cresswell, (excerpts) fast forward 2 The Power of Motion, Media Art Sammlung Goetz (Hatje Cantz Verlag) 2010line can make all the difference.