User:Inge Hoonte/forgottenspace

Some very incomplete scrambled notes while watching the movie. Rhythm, whimsical, poetic, all-encompassing, truthful, not afraid to stir, raise questions, show the ugly scars of cosmopolitan capitalism. www.theforgottenspace.net Covers a ton of ground, multiple angles. Assignment from Gemeente Lingewaal & SKOR.

SKOR Maasvlakte 2 Beeldproject.

Hinterland, greedy continent. What protects village from sea economy? Ships are floating warehouses. Anonymity of the box. Idle ships > forgotten space.

9/10th of the world commerce travels by sea.

1950s > port of Rotterdam promised to revitalize rebuilding the city. The container box was introduced to Rotterdam in 1966. Physical unit of trade. The center of the maritime world now is Asia. once it was Rotterdam. The port with all its boxes, is a gangster's suitcase filled with white washed dollar bills. Rotterdam's rival ports are Antwerp and Hamburg.

Human physical labor is far suppressed by automated machines that save labor costs. Robot vehicles carry containers from ship to shore and back again. Highly skilled workers that are left work in isolation. Work max 4hrs in lifting, such a precise focused job, easily tiring.

Is this all a spirited rehearsal for an automated future?

LEAD INTO BETUWELIJN, TRANSPORT BY TRAIN River barge: most efficient, least destructive for environment. Where it was once a trade of independent, one-man businesses that whole family was partaking in, now taken over by commerce and corporate business. Economically more viable to take load off the road and onto the boat. Shipmen don't believe in efficiency Betuwelijn.

Betuwelijn spokesperson: tracks necessary to transport dangerous chemicals, this way you bypass cities.

Betuwelijn train operator: driving a train used to be this romantic idea... steam engine... whoot whoot... Now you watch a screen and barely see the outside world. Tunnel vision.

Femke Halsema: against expansion infrastructure and economic growth thereof. Just there to protect the government, to make citizens belief the country is doing well.

CONTAINER SHIP Bunker oil is Rotterdam's main money maker. Used to run the ship, incredibly filthy and acid for the ocean. Ships need endless monitoring and checking to prevent rust, possible disaster. LA: biggest cargo harbors for N+S America. Model for rest of the world's harbors. Only 2% of containers are inspected by customs. If they'd do more, the entire system would come to a halt, would take too long and halt economy.

"The boy believed all mud could be brought up to the Sun"

Footage of Joseph/Josef van Sternberg (?) > Terminal Island, 1920s. (Not taken up: how Asian community shaped fishing industry in California...) Poor people fighting their oppressors.

TRUCK DRIVERS IN US Union vs independent contractors. Companies making money over workers' backs. They are not insured for anything in case of accidents. Earning less and less while higher costs to maintain their business. 17hrs on road, making less than minimum wage. But people who lost their jobs and live in tents by the railroad... Hard cycle to get out of. No support for middle aged men.

Alameda Corridor: "Silk road of the 21st Century" promised 700.000 jobs. Reinflation of the bubble. Waiting for economy to pick up. Echoing promising times passed... Marco Polo's adventure.

CSAV LAJA > Ship from Singapore.

10% of ships lay idle... loaded with empty cargo containers, nowhere to go. Floating cities.

Hongkong Sea School > started in 1946 to get urchins and orphans off the street. Training them for job market, discipline.

Sea Port hospitality dating back to chr. customs early 1900s.

Scheepslui = seafarers.

SAILING UNDER FLAG OF CONVENIENCE > register through another country to be able to hire a cheaper, foreign crew. Crew from Singapore, Indonesia and Filipines most wanted.

CHINA Never had sea culture, only recently to intensify position in world market. Workers paid poorly. Can't uproar for higher wages because capitalism has too strong of a position. They'd just be replaced by people willing to make less than zero.

UNDERPAID WORKERS IN CHINA PRODUCE CHEAP STUFF FOR UNDERPAID WORKERS IN USA

Economic crisis > lower cost production but more sustainable. Vanishing of middle class. Will not always be this way. Projected in 10-15 years time that Chinese workers no longer accept such conditions. Will have tremendous impact on rest of world.

BILBAO NY Museum, Guggenheim. Out of place in this town. Funded by steel capital. Full of Serra, who used to be ship yard worker in his youth.

"THE LONELY CREW MUST CEASE THE HELM"

Q&A

Allan Sekula's Fish Story (1995) + text/essay he wrote was impetus for the film. Essay format allows for freedom, no traditional documentary restraints. Free flow. Poetically titled chapters.

Q Sven Lüttingen: Is this still viable format, the essay?
A AS: Still photography dominated in magazines. Battle with hybrid structure. Middle brow. But has long literary tradition.
NB: in contrast with documentary: too factive. In essay film can raise more questions, pose ideas. So much more open ended. Commentary driven. Material very disperate. text required to tie story together. Sequences strung into story.
AS: Commentary was structured last. You can't write that until edited film is there. Charles Olson: Projected verse > take into account breathing with structure of poetry. Physicality of giving voice to thought. RHYTHM.

 "In Projective Verse (1950), Olson called for a poetic meter based on the breath of the poet and an open 
construction based on sound and the linking of perceptions rather than syntax and logic. The poem "The Kingfishers", 
first published in 1949 and collected in his first book of poetry, In Cold Hell, in Thicket (1953), is an application 
of the manifesto." (wikipedia)

Q SL: Containers in film are abstract, no content.
A AS: Yes, embodies abstraction. Narration, humanize story. Relate to Michael Moore & Inside Job. Where there's a stronger protagonist.
SV: Container hides the goods.
AS: Discontinuity in global system > conversation with people you otherwise never talk to. Crew rotates, depends entirely on schedule of ship world. We as consumers are so blind to actual world trade.

NB: this film takes on the ENTIRE system, and abstracts stuff traveling all over world. Criticism on film comes from ignorant world view... of not wanting to admit the mess we're in.
AS: How could this trading system change? Can it? If you open the box, you display all its ugly political capitalist content.

SL: Godard's "Socialisme" > he wanted to release it via two french boys thrown out of a plane who each have a dvd that will show and distribute the work throughout France.

 Plot

According to the synopsis on the film's official website,[3] the film is composed of three movements. 
The first movement, Des choses comme ça ("Such things") is set on a cruise ship, featuring multi-lingual 
conversations among a medley collection of passengers. Characters include an aging war criminal, a former 
United Nations official and a Russian detective. The second movement, Notre Europe ("Our Europe"), involves 
a pair of children, a girl and her younger brother, summoning their parents to appear before the "tribunal 
of their childhood", demanding serious answers on the themes of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The final 
movement, Nos humanités ("Our humanities") visits six legendary sites: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, 
Naples, and Barcelona. The cruise ship is the Costa Serena, sailing around the Mediterranean Sea.

AS: SEA IS A SPACE FROM WHICH WE HAVE TO RETHINK REALITY. SEA ECONOMY IS A METANYM FOR REAL ECONOMY.

Zones of invisibility > tent camp, ports, disheveled communities surrounding Betuwelijn, Doel in Belgium (about to vanish bc of expansion port Antwerp), Chinese workers, ship crew, etc etc.

Audience: Sea is lawless. But capital profits.
AS: Sea is piss pot. We don't want to acknowledge this.

BUREAUCRATIC PIRACY