Above the Weather (2015)
I’m slicker than an oil spill PitbullThe film
Above the Weather, the third part of the Alien Passions trilogy, takes the form of a road movie set in the atmosphere of a classical 50’s Hollywood melodrama, shot against a background of industrial scenery from today’s Romania, with shabby oil pumps and derelict gas tanks. It makes reference to Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1957), taking the title literally, and hinting at the immaterial aspects of weather, and to the materiality of emotions, to the circuit linking affective and natural climates. It is a play on different temporalities, and follows how the end of humanity is recontextualized across different epochs – a 20’s poem by Sara Teasdale on extinction, a 50’s nuclear SF radio show, and the 80’s Turkish Eurovision song Petrol.
The performance
Performance has become the party of the art exhibition. On the last day of the show, we are throwing a party. Above the Weather. When is it going to end? It goes in loops. Peak experience meets peak oil. Warm up your voice and spirits. Come join us and we’ll celebrate the end together!
The film Above the Weather was first shown in The Dark Side of Nature, curated by Anca Mihulet and Diana Marincu, November 11th, 2015 - January 31st, 2016, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, Romania, with a performance at the finissage, later presented in WING Hong Hong. An earlier version of the performance was presented in Art Encounters Timisoara in October 2016.
Above the Weather in MNAC Bucharest (performance excerpt):
