Forest Paths

VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

Play, download and edit the free video Forest Paths.

Forest Paths  3:39  4K video.  Camera, sound, editing: Michiel van Bakel

A warped stroll through a forest.
 Animated still photographs reveal movement and light on the forest paths that are otherwise invisible to the human eye.
 Van Bakel made a ‘scanner-camera’ that extends human vision to near-infrared light in an other-worldly way.
 What’s this thing called vision? What’s the fundamental difference between what a robot discerns, what a flying insect detects or man’s observation?

Inspiration: 
’“Wood” is an old name for forest. In the wood there are paths, mostly overgrown, that come to an abrupt stop where the wood is untrodden. They are called Holzwege. Each goes its separate way, though within the same forest. It often appears as if one is identical to another. But it only appears so. Woodcutters and forest keepers know these paths. They know what it means to be on a Holzweg. ’
From the preface to Martin Heidegger’s ‘Off the Beaten Track’ (Holzwege)

’Human beings have absorbed technology at an unconscious level, such that they have come to operate through technology, as though by way of some tele-kinesis.
…It is time, it would seem, to adopt a more flexible and tolerant attitude towards technology. It is time to break free from the shackles of the past. It is time, perhaps, to forget Heidegger.’ 
Neil Leach

Heidegger once stated that unless we question technology, “we remain unfree and chained to technology”. A vision not shared by everyone these days. In this video artwork our interconnectedness to both technology and our natural habitat is disclosed. It unveils otherwise unseen aspects of ‘nature’ and the camera helps us interpret the forest in new ways.

DCP 4k 3996×2160 flat 24 FPS

DCP 4k 3996×2160 flat 30 FPS
ProRes 4k 3996x2160 50P

Forest Paths  premiered at IFFR 2018 and screened at: Karlovy Vary Film Festival | CZ, Experimental Film Festival Kinodot | Saint Petersburg | Russia, International Short Film Festival | Cyprus, New Media Art Festival (NEMAF) | Seoul | South-Korea, Edingburgh Film Festival | GB-SCT, Imagine Science Film Festival | New York City | USA, Traverse Video Festival | Toulouse | FR

Distribution LI-MA,  Eye Filminstitute

Forest Paths was supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Mondriaan Fund

Download, play and edit free videos and free audios from Forest Paths using RedcoolMedia.net web apps