Astrid van Nimwegen - part two of draft 2 Description shooting day

The shootingday 26th March 2012

It is two o’clock at night; the bathroom must be around 43 degrees warm now. Slowly I open the door, an awful smell comes into my nose, I step inside to carefully pull on the thin, hairy legs of the deer to shape it a bit in its natural form. The dead deer hangs in the shower, now almost defrosted by the gas heater. Never imagined it would take more then two days to defrost an animal that size… This afternoon the horns were already put on with five-centimeter large screws to turn the female deer into a male roe goat. Time to sleep now, tomorrow it will be an exiting day.

The violin player walks slowly, solemnly towards the beautiful big tree, her red dress blowing in the wind. She takes her place next to the old tree; a dead deer dangles from a side branch. For a moment she is standing completely still…. Then she closes her eyes and puts the violin under her chin. The single notes coming from the violin does not disrupt the sound of reeds moved back and forth by the wind. In the distance five hunters slowly approach with a dead hare in one hand and a rifle in the other. Resolute they stare ahead, their eyes focused on just one aim; their paths. The red car, which just passed by on the road, suddenly drives into the landscape. A fisherman steps out of the car, opens the trunk and takes out a bucket and a fishing rod. A wooden chair already stands there, apparently waiting for the man to come. He takes place, puts the zinc bucket in front of him and throws his fishingline into the bucket. There he sits, waiting… To his left and his right the hunters, dressed in green suits, again walk by in a straight line, they not even notice one another.

All are connected by their place in time and space, connected without meeting each other; in their own isolation, connected through life and by doing what they do, creating some meaning of existence. Pursuing their own conviction with enormous dedication and awareness. All in search for their own truth, the truth that lies hidden in their being?

Two steady cameras on tripods capture this act of existence; with a stilled eye they are looking what happens without interfering.

It is not clear if the people are suffering of their situation or in their search for meaning or whether they enjoy it. Says the violin player goodbye, is she sad? Why is she wearing that red dress, is she symbolizing something? And why is the dead deer hanging there? Probably it is not even clear why they are all together in this landscape and why they are doing what they do, can such an image been read as a comment on our being in this world? Are those questions deliberately created for the viewer? Or is the work just lacking in content?

When does a choice of intuition take place and where does an intuitive choice have to become a conscious one?

By using very literal elements, you can achieve to expose a different content that is not graspable but which lies within this literacy and in this carefully build second reality.