Mountains rest, overwhelmed by stars

Mountains rest, overwhelmed by stars is a video work that develops the themes of space and time with a particular reference to differing timescales. Its starting point is an apparent paradox: that the things we regard as motionless (such as stars and mountains) are in fact in a continual process of change.

The installation

The installation consists of two screens. One shows evolving mountain and glacier forms derived from the Swiss Alps, while the second shows the movement of stars, using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. The movements of the glaciers a data set showing the changing extent of glaciers in the Alps over the last 150 years; the tragic losses due to climate change are also a thematic concern. The work therefore represents multiple accelerated timescales, layered together.

The title comes from a line in a poem by Rilke: Wunderliches Wort: die Zeit vertreiben! This poem has been a guide for me for several years: my previous solo exhibition in Switzerland, in 2018, also took a line from it as its title (auch in ihnen flimmert Zeit).

My translation:

How odd the words: to while away the time

How odd the words: To while away the time!
How to keep it held would be the problem.
Who then, is not fearful: where is there a staying,
where finally is there any being? —

Look you, as the day slows down, defying
that space, takes it into twilight: where rising became
upstanding, standing a laying down, and then
that which willingly reclines, is blurring into darkness —

Mountains rest, overwhelmed by stars —
but even there, time’s transition flickers.
Ah, in my wild heart sleeping nightly,
roofless, immortality lingers.

— translated November, 2022

Wunderliches Wort: die Zeit vertreiben!

Wunderliches Wort: die Zeit vertreiben!
Sie zu halten, wäre das Problem.
Denn, wen ängstigts nicht: wo ist ein Bleiben,
wo ein endlich Sein in alledem? —

Sieh, der Tag verlangsamt sich, entgegen
jenem Raum, der ihn nach Abend nimmt:
Aufstehn wurde Stehn, und Stehn wird Legen,
und das willig Liegende verschwimmt —

Berge ruhn, von Sternen überprächtigt; —
aber auch in ihnen flimmert Zeit.
Ach, in meinem wilden Herzen nächtigt
obdachlos die Unvergänglichkeit.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, 1920