Concert in Swiss Pavilion - Venice Bienale 2003

Live Performance by Honey For Petzi in the Swiss Pavilion during the Venice Bienale 2003. The band composed all soundtracks of the Angels Camp project.
Live Performance by Honey For Petzi in the Swiss Pavilion during the Venice Bienale 2003. The band composed all soundtracks of the Angels Camp project.
Consisting of filmed sequences projected simultaneously onto four screens, this installation adopts a very physical approach, placing the spectator directly into the atmosphere and settings of the film. This part of the itinerary concentrates on the notion of scenery and what goes on behind the scenes, the shift from reality to fantasy, and the links between the characters. In their content and editing, the images respond to one another, forming an interactive, sheltering space in which the visitor can move around as if in the embrace of a landscape. Based on the final episode of the film and its rituals, the installation presents the main characters, concentrating on a day and a night during which their destinies suddenly shift and come together. Following this key turning point, their stories are joined as one. The installation’s sound track was also composed by the musicians of Honey For Petzi. It provides an accompaniment for all the characters, at the same time reinforcing their identities. During the three opening days of the Biennale, the musicians were present in the hall, playing their music live to create the sound environment of the installation. As in the days of silent films, the group watched and played as the sequences are projected.
Installation views at the Venice Bienale, Swiss Pavilion, 2003. Photos © Georg Rehsteiner.
Angels Camp is the overall title of a body of work based on a fictional story.The project consists of a full-length film (80’), a sound and video installations, photographs, objects, music and a novel. All these components work together as a group at the same time independent and closely inter-related. They complement each other, and each in its own way helps develop the story. The full-length film tells the story of a region and its inhabitants. It is a saga in four episodes, shot season-by-season over a year. The characters are: the Woman with a torch, her Mother and Imaginary Sister, Celya and Arantxa the two Cabin Girls, the Man of the Woods, the River Girl, Marie, Dani, the White Dog, the Kids with the Foal.
The story plunges us into their lives, dreams and destinies. Together they are the guardians of a shared experience, lived in the imaginary world of Angels Camp. The settings in which these characters take refuge play a vital role in the story. The pine woods, the caves and mushroom beds, the hidden creek, the village of abandoned cabins evoke the joy of wide open spaces and the world of childhood, with its uninhibited behaviour, the freedom to break with accepted codes and establish one’s own rules. The landscapes act as mirrors, reflecting the inner life of the characters.
By The River, the first of the film’s four episodes, takes place in autumn in a house surrounded by corn fields. This episod paints the portrait of a woman of about fifty, who lives with her mother in the old family home. Having refused to grow up, this woman lives in a fantasy world, taking refuge in the things of childhood. She has invented a sister for herself, a double, with whom she communicates and who accompanies her in her imaginary escapades. When evening comes, this woman dreams of a girl by a river, an angel figure strangely similar to the one in the picture in her bedroom. Every night, she gets up as if sleep-walking, goes to her window with a torch and signals to a man who – she believes – is waiting outside in his car to take her away.
The action of The Red Cabins takes place in January on the banks of the lake in a complex of holiday cabins left empty during the winter. This episode describes the lives of two adolescent girls who are living in one of the cabins. Left to themselves in this remote spot, they watch out for each other as they try to survive from day to day. During the daytime, they appear to be two homeless girls, spending their time playing in this no man’s land, encouraging each other to acquire a physical and mental hardness. They invent games – often tender, sometimes cruel and violent – to toughen themselves up. At night, they take part in more dangerous activities, which lead them into extreme situations, despite themselves. Their cabin is frequented by the village men, who visit them to obtain sexual favours. Always in the background is a man who lives in his car in the surrounding forest – the same man as in the previous episode. He watches them and, one night, is a helpless witness of the drama which proves to be their downfall.
From The Woods is the title of the third part, shot in spring in the surrounding woods. It tells the story from the point of view of the man we have glimpsed in the two previous episodes. For some months, he has lived alone in the forest, in his car. At night, he sleeps in the vicinity of some caves. He has visions, which are a mixture of memory and premonition, human beings, angels and animals. By day, he roves around and spies on the village folk. The man is haunted by the image of the adolescent girls living in the cabins, the woman he sees with her torch at the window, the girl by the river. He tries to understand the violence and despair of their actions, the mysterious forces which drive them on. In this quest, he wanders further afield each day. He seems to be increasingly lost in the forest, immersed in his dream world through the lives of the people he observes.
The fourth episode is entitled The Creek. It is set in summer, in an inlet on the lake, and focuses on relationships among the members of a group of adults, children and adolescents who have come to escape from the forest and the alien world in which they previously lived. The group includes the Woman with a Torch, the River Girl, the Man of the Woods,Arantxa, the surviving Cabin Girl, and the White Dog. Having come together on this beach, they form a community which functions as an eccentric reconstituted family.