Crash Site / My_Never_Ending_Burial_Plot film is the sixth episode in the serial-based project X Characters, which revolves around the attempt to update the identities of iconic female film characters. The productions realised so far (A Memory of the Players, 2001; Coming Attraction, 2002; X Characters / RE(hers)AL, 2003; X NaNa / Subroutine, 2004; X Love Scenes, 2007) are drafted as interdisciplinary projects, and investigate distinct forms of female identities in the context of contemporary art practices, while at the same time focusing on the history of cinematic and theatrical forms in conjunction with the role of New Media in the present day.
“Hence the zombies sing a song, but it is that of life”.
Gilles Deleuze
A new version of Hari of Andrej Tarkovsky‘s Solaris encounters two other undead from film history: Godard‘s Nana and Antonionis‘s Giuliana who, following a sex change, has now become Julian. Lost in an abandoned forest clearing, the three characters attempt to have done with their past: to “find their end”, to “bury history”, to kill themselves, to beat each other to death. The plot is organised around a burial that never comes to a close and so becomes an endless burial loop. The three characters are captured again and again in a present that repeats in variations.
Video, Colour, 69 minutes
Written and directed by: Constanze Ruhm
Assistant director: Christine Lang
D.O.P.:
Dirk Lütter
Camera assistants: Eduardo Lopes, Lukas Heistinger
Sound: Titus Maderlechner
Sound assistant: Stephan Koethe
Editing: Christine Lang, Constanze Ruhm
Conceptual advisor: Fareed Armaly
Dramaturgic advisor: Sebastian Huber
Production management: Kerstin Brandes
Light: Mathias Becker
Music:
Ekkehard Ehlers
Viola da gamba: Eva Reiter;
Bass: Werner Dafeldecker
Audiopostproduction: Titus
Maderlechner, Ekkehard Ehlers
Costumes: Regina Möller
Costume assistant: Simone Simon
Special costumes: Zarra Kostüm
Make up: Dana Bieler
Production design: Judith Rudolf
Assistants: Sabine Balzer,
Nico Ihlein
Graphic design: Maia Fleur, Felicitas Müller
SFX props: Beate Kelm
Set photos: Lukas Heistinger, Julia Lazarus
Still photos: Matthias Herrmann.
Cast: Irina Kastrinidis, Dominic Oley, Judith van der Werff, Gudrun Gut, Erika Hasselberg, Dana Bieler.
Constanze Ruhm, born in 1965 in Vienna. Works in film, video and installation. Also works as a writer and curator. Since 2006 she is professor of art and media at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Since 2007 also adjunct professor at the Art Instiute Boston / Lesley University. Lives in Berlin and Vienna.
Contact: www.constanzeruhm.net
