videoart.ch

DAWA

Strba Annelies - DAWA (30'' Preview)

2001
SD PAL, 4:3, Colour, Sound, 53'20''

DAWA is accompanied by an oriental-sounding melody composed by Strba's son Samuel Schobinger. The tranquil, repetitive melody has gentle underlying effects: barely perceptibly, something changes. The video shows pictures of Strba's two daughters - with their children Shereen and Samuel-Maria - combined with landscape sequences and floral images. Here, Strba works with extreme off-colours: luridly violet hair, black flowers with blue dots at the centre and landscapes in the late impressionist hues of Raoul Dufy (pale blue, orange, pastel green, yellow) bathe the video in an unreal, ethereal light. As in thermal imaging, the forms blur into an assemblage of colou-red patches. In the end, as in the paintings of Dufy, black is also added. The movements are stretched in jerky slow motion and dissolve into individual positions (which are then brought to a complete standstill in the video stills).