We Came Out of the Sea (Fridge:Bridge)
5020, Salzburg. March, 2017.
Thanks to Anamarija Batista und Ksenija Orelj, Sina Moser, Karolina Radenkovic and all at 5020.
'We Came Out of the Sea', video
We Came Out of the Sea is a wish poem. It is a 20 minute video about the city of Salzburg, 'produced' in the year 2117. It is a documentary about the state of affairs in 2017, which uses footage from 2017 as seen from the perspective of a sociopolitically different time, 100 years in the future.
We Came Out of the Sea was shot over several days in February 2017. Writing and editing continued until the show on 10th of March. The film employs a voice over to tell the story, and also includes various songs and non verbal elements.
Awkward personal communication devices
A bubble of hope
The unbearable lightness of being
Endless fastfood labour
The future depicted by Bunn in We Came Out of the Sea is one without global corporations, though there are global institutions. Local citizens are able to make decisions about the specifics of their own cities, technology is more advanced, the environment is no longer threatened by imminent destruction. Tourism doesn't happen any more, shopping is different. etc. Our current times are viewed as baffling by these future citizens of the world.
Installation view, 5020
A section of the film involves a fleet of flying fridges
Fridge:Bridge was the sculptural installation Bunn developed to house We Came Out of the Sea, and to conceptually justify its existence: to bridge the gap and explain how such a film might be able to be seen now, 100 years before it was produced. It was made for the exhibition, The Munchhausen-Effect, which tackled utopia from the perspective of the infamous Baron, who in one story pulled himself out of a lake by his own hair. Fridge:Bridge was Bunn's attempt to do the same, using a positive story (a eutopia) about the future.
The installation comprised two films, Bridge, a short film showing Bunn travelling into the fridge (and hence the future) on a magical shopping cart, and Fridge, which showed We Came Out of the Sea. Bridge was shown on the playback screen of a video camera, which was pointed at Fridge - a 1:1 replica of a Samsung Family Fridge, an internet-of-things appliance Bunn considers to be the epitome of ridiculous, selfish individualist, mad consumerism. The fridge in general is considered by Bunn to be one of those elements of our current sociopolitical times that seems impossible to be without. Its unquestionability making it a good thing to question.
This work is a clear continuation of Bunn’s previous appearance, the talk The Fridge from the Future, and a study for his master thesis, which deals with using utopia as a method for critiquing the present whilst talking optimistically about the future.
Video for 'Bridge'