Video. Edition: 5
DV PAL, 16:9, 5min 00sec, stereo, 2008.
Collection of Heino Art Collection
Collection of Vehbi Koç Foundation
Rome dérive III investigates how the way we experience space and place is affected by images, including films, photographs and TV. The work is a recreation of a scene in La Dolce Vita, faithfully reconstructing the original locations, camera angles and movements, but without any actors. The soundtrack consists of fragments from the dialogue of the original film, mixed with night-time sounds recorded in the locations when the video was being shot. The work reminds us of how visual culture can shape our idea of space – in this case, one of the most photographed sites in the world, the Fontana di Trevi in Rome.
In Rome Dérive I-III video-series, Astala has filmed the city of Rome in different perspectives. The video material, especially in Rome derive I & II, was brought forth by random encounters, as a result of ‘drifting’ (dériver).
Urban space is on a general level a place for arrivals and departures, a flow of non-returnable moments. The notion of the eternal city all too easily creates an image of a static, even massive and heavy, permanent place. In these works Rome appears light and unattainable, changing and amorphous. It is a city passing by and streaming around you, its fixed points forever growing dim.