I, like many others, have long been fascinated by the beauty of our moon. This fascination does not limit itself to its many faces protagonizing the night skies; my interest digs within the history of what humans believed they were witnessing and the many interpretations of its gravitational pull on our tides, often giving me the impression that we remain incredibly superstitious animals. So during the summer months of the year 2005, I set out to pursue the moon in the dimly darkened night skies of Scandinavia. After weeks of test-shoots and studying quick-changing weather patterns during short intervals of darkness as allowed by this time of the year at such high latitudes, it looked like I would have to take to the sea and shoot from the ferry between Sweden and Finland on the only full-moon nights (due to cloudy forecasts everywhere else). Finally, feeling almost beaten by odds which I felt I should have myself beaten, there it was: big and red and rising slowly above a river in Härjedalen, over the town called Älvros (River Rose). I stopped the car, set-up my gear and began to shoot. Out of my obsession, I became possessed and thus began my pursuit of the moon across the sky. This trip lasted three nights. The video piece is the result of this journey. It turned into a trance-like meditation.
The drawings of Luna are excerpts of my sketchbook that summer. Each sketch was intended to guide the viewer through the mental process I underwent in order to turn my footage into an installation where the viewer might be afforded the opportunity to experience a little of what I experienced. I'm not sure if this kind of thing ever succeeds, but I hope that those who visited the piece managed to form their own relationship to this depiction of something which we have all seen, gazed and at some point wondered about.
More by Orestes Grediaga can be found on his website :
x, B.
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