You Define Yourself by Protecting Yourself / ZAŠTITA NAS ODREĐUJE

Nadija Mustapić

2015

 

Video
HD 1080p, PAL, color, 5’39” loop, 4.0 surround sound
(contact me to get the Vimeo password )

 

An idyllic landscape is inhabited with leisure activities, hikers and joggers, whose movements sometimes resemble those of people hiding for shelter, running away or observing each other. Tourism and recreation are the activities that shape the new purpose, the new use of the landscape, which until recently was defined by military architecture.  The juxtaposed soundscapes and voiceovers represent a subversion of what is visible in the present landscape and pose questions about its future. In those soundscapes, voices of children keep repeating safety instructions and strategies in English language, in a way that echoes discourses on freedom which are beyond the American “code orange” rhetoric and deeply imbedded into universal quotidian discourses globally.
The video questions the interrelationship of nature and history on a specific location with hiking trails and fortification architecture. Issues of memory are positioned within the represented landscape, but also a network of various relationships – the relationship between nature and man, artist and nature, constructed and natural environment, the question of identity, collective memory, daily life and a form of social reality.

The focus of the camera suggests other lenses or targets, such as weapons’ or satellites’ sights monitoring the daily life.

 

Production specifications:
Author: Nadija Mustapić
Camera, Editing: Nadija Mustapić
Surround Sound Editing: Toni Meštrović

Filmed at Marin Headlands during artist residency.
Thanks to:
Headlands Center for the Arts, Marine Headlands National Park, Holly Blake & Brian Karl, Megan Berner, Jeremy Miller & Katharine Odle, Jennifer & Kevin & Ginger Mccoy, Elizabeth Hughes & Luka & Darijan, Heather Foster, Summer & Lenny, Sam & Harriet & Jesse Johnson, Jenn & Thea & Zoe, Jeremy & Ellis Chen, Luiza Margan, George & Adelita Rei.