[February 8th 2002]

Mr Peter Land

Interview with Peter Land
Julie Damgaard Nielsen asked Peter Land a couple of questions about his current exhibition in the X-Room of The National Gallery in Copenhagen.

Peter Land: The Ride
The X-Room, Danish National Gallery
16.2.-5.5.2002

Can you tell be a little about The Ride.…
Well, it's a 16 mm film, going around in a loop; the film lasts for about 3 minutes and the two tail ends of the film reel are connected. In the film you see a man (my self) bicycling down a path in a scenic natural resort, and time after time falling off my bike. Because of the loop effect this sequence takes up a lot more space than it would otherwise- it's an almost Storm P. kind of construction.

The Ride only takes up about one fifth of the total area of the X-room so it's only in a very small area of the exhibition area that things are going on. The room as a whole becomes an active part of the experience as it emphasizes the content of the video: the feeling of emptiness and difficulties in finding out the meaning of ones life.

Earlier we had a common religion; Christianity was shared ground. God placed us on earth and by acknowledging this we found meaning in life. Today you have to decide for yourself, what is meaningful. As an artist it's especially difficult because you have to find reasons for your life and your art.

I'm expressing an existential crisis through the sense of emptiness - the one in the room and the one that lies in repetition.

You made the music for the film yourself….
Yes, I've made the music on a computer; to illude the sounds from an orchestra. It's the same melody that's playing all the time, with just a few variations. The principle is the same as in Ravel's Bolero, where you experience the same music played my more and more instruments.

How is this work different from previous?
I've chosen to present my other work as video. In that respect 16mm film is an old fashioned method for making something, which today it would be possible to make far more smoothly. The specific construction that lies at the basis for making the moving images in The Ride is actually - and much more so than earlier - part of underscoring the content of the work.

What does the use of repetition mean?
The fact that the sequence is repeated nine times is to emphasize that this is about something more than just an accident; there is something wrong here - either with the man, the bike or the reality he finds himself present in.

It can remind you of Camus' writing on Sisyfos, where the gods punish Sisyfos by forcing him to push a boulder up a hill, again and again.

More on The Ride