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Film starts in a very simple fashion: We follow movements of a homeless man in a park. Voice-over starts, musing about surveillance, following and shadows. Camera slowly pans out, until we realize we are actually watching a record of a man moving in a park. The situation becomes more complicated: are we now shadowing the person shadowing the man? What exactly is the position of the narrator in relation to the man - and what is the position of the viewer in relation to the narrator?
A short film was originally shot in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2006, and completed for Manifesta 8-workshop held by Khaled Ramadan (Chamber of Public Secrets) at Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Finland and Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain.
The Surveillance Exercise (script, early version)
DARKNESS, NARRATOR starts (VOICE-OVER).
NARRATOR (V.O.)
I sit in a park. In a dangrous part of the city. In heat of summer. There is this man. He looks shabby. I feel uneasy. What exactly is this man about. Doing all these weird things. He looks like homeless. Should I be worried? Could he try to rob me?
A pause, then:
NARRATOR (V.O, CONTD.)
I take out a camera. I put a tape in. I start filming.
Images appear; film of a HOMELESS PERSON in a park, walking around, stretching, doing things that seem to have no purpose. The camera moves slightly to the breathing of filmographer and follows like a gaze, zooming in and out.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
I escape the situation: I become a surveillance camera.
Man never meets his shadow. Baudrillard advices that the best way to not meet someone is to 'follow him from a distance and never lose sight of him.' Fear turns into control. Without contact no harm can be done. The violent moments are those when he looks into you and you cannot know if he has recognized you for what you are: His very own shadow, non-existent, merely following him yet at the same time establishing a curious control.
I control him, he controls me. In a story of Borges, called The Babylon Lottery, one's whole life is subjected to lottery, redrawn each day, slaves and kings are at the mercy of Goddess of Chance. Indeed, the whole state. What a sweet relief from the terror of free will! That responsibility of our precious life, constant choosing and struggle that weights on our shoulders as we lie awake at night - abolished, gone, all given to chance!
Camera continues following the homeless for about 12 minutes - until the end of the film. Nothing much happens, other than more meaningless excercises.
Surveillance Exercise
2010
A short film
HD Video transferred to DVD
3 min
Written & Directed by
Teemu Kivikangas
Thanks to
Khaled Ramadan
Text and images (c) Teemu Kivikangas 2008-2010. All rights reserved.