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| The Black Sea Files by Ursula Biemann | ||||
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[INTRO] |
The video complex examines the energy geography which connects the landlocked Caspian fossil resources to the world sea system through a giant oil pipeline presently under construction. In Fall 2004, it will begin pumping the Caspian crude to the West. The Black Sea Files track the logistic technology of the pipeline, comments on the urban and rural transformations, engage with the people who live along side its trajectory and reflect on the oil history and politics of the region. Starting at the shallow offshore oilfields in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, the videography follows the trajectory through the Caucasian corridor, engages with Azeri and Georgian farmers and Russian prostitutes on the way, crosses through Kurdish and Turkish territories to terminate on the Mediterranean harbor near Ceyhan.
The conduits put down for the transfer of crude oil determine to a large extent this cartography of transit. Only at the moment of construction are these processes visible; within months, they will be forever buried two yards underground. Then the scraped and dug up topography will return to its rural, disconnected condition while high tech underground infrastructures invisibly pump energy to the Western markets. The project captures the gigantic material and physical effort involved in building the ducts. In doing so, it contrasts current representations of data flow and energy which indicate a boundless and effortless, even magic transfer of energy. The video aims at exposing the hidden matrix of this political space. Drawing on investigatory fieldwork as practiced by anthropologists,
embedded journalists and secret intelligence agents, the project
comments on artistic methods in the field and the ways in which
information and visual intelligence is detected, circulated or withheld. |
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