OIL SPILL
Oil Spill is the working title for this film project.*
‘Spill’ in Norwegian means competition, play or game. In English it can signify overflow or revelation. It is also a homophone of the yiddish ‘spiel’, which in English can refer to an elaborate but superficial story, a salesman’s pitch.
We are working on a film that plays with the current (global) shtick about Norway as utopian alternative to a ‘corrupt’ neoliberal capitalism. We want to explore some different propositions and play some different games.
We want to look at the uses of free speech and (Scandinavian) social democracy in the context of growing right-wing populism.
We will explore an idea of Norway and its function in a global game of ‘freedom’ by constructing a film as virtual (video) game.
We will posit a series of images and a soundtrack using a series of interviews, focus groups, games with the voices of very fine people on both sides of this fictitious game.
The film’s visual surface will include a literal film of oil, using its duality (not to say polarity) as a material. Its materiality as a core commodity, to evoke other forms of substance and reflection.
Different commentators, players in the current ‘game of freedom’ that uses Norway, and freedom, as its stage or platform – are given the brief of devising the architecture of a new kind of video game.
In the game players compete to accumulate a game currency called freecoin. Winners can exploit stories about free expression, human rights, and Norwegian exceptionalism. In the process they seek to amass titles to wealth in the real world, converting freecoin back into commodities, such as oil.
Researched and directed by Veronica Diesen and Benedict Seymour, it is a British-Norwegian collaboration, a parallax produced when one views the same set of contradictions from two opposing perspectives.
*AKA ‘The Norwegian Ideology’, or ‘The Idea of Norse’. David Jarman’s ‘Blue’ meets Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ via Glen Gould’s ‘The Idea of North’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWZh9fAL-R8
Oil Spill is the working title for this film project.*
‘Spill’ in Norwegian means competition, play or game. In English it can signify overflow or revelation. It is also a homophone of the yiddish ‘spiel’, which in English can refer to an elaborate but superficial story, a salesman’s pitch.
We are working on a film that plays with the current (global) shtick about Norway as utopian alternative to a ‘corrupt’ neoliberal capitalism. We want to explore some different propositions and play some different games.
We want to look at the uses of free speech and (Scandinavian) social democracy in the context of growing right-wing populism.
We will explore an idea of Norway and its function in a global game of ‘freedom’ by constructing a film as virtual (video) game.
We will posit a series of images and a soundtrack using a series of interviews, focus groups, games with the voices of very fine people on both sides of this fictitious game.
The film’s visual surface will include a literal film of oil, using its duality (not to say polarity) as a material. Its materiality as a core commodity, to evoke other forms of substance and reflection.
Different commentators, players in the current ‘game of freedom’ that uses Norway, and freedom, as its stage or platform – are given the brief of devising the architecture of a new kind of video game.
In the game players compete to accumulate a game currency called freecoin. Winners can exploit stories about free expression, human rights, and Norwegian exceptionalism. In the process they seek to amass titles to wealth in the real world, converting freecoin back into commodities, such as oil.
Researched and directed by Veronica Diesen and Benedict Seymour, it is a British-Norwegian collaboration, a parallax produced when one views the same set of contradictions from two opposing perspectives.
*AKA ‘The Norwegian Ideology’, or ‘The Idea of Norse’. David Jarman’s ‘Blue’ meets Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ via Glen Gould’s ‘The Idea of North’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWZh9fAL-R8
We made a preview:
Then by chance we found ourselves in Portland, Oregon;
Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles California; so we started shooting & asking questions:
Mostly everything begins or ends with (a) shooting, usually in the first person. But what happens if the shooter is a ‘we’?
As trans communists, we’re all about abolition, we just think it needs to be so massive that white men are replaced by whatever people of no race gender or class whatsoever.
Oil Spill is about who replaces who, which magic – black or white – wins in the struggle to replace the current disaster (of non-replacement).
If we meet Greta Thurnberg we shall be sure to ask her for her views, but we are also interested in what those with nothing have to say about everything.
Then by chance we found ourselves in Portland, Oregon;
Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles California; so we started shooting & asking questions:
Mostly everything begins or ends with (a) shooting, usually in the first person. But what happens if the shooter is a ‘we’?
As trans communists, we’re all about abolition, we just think it needs to be so massive that white men are replaced by whatever people of no race gender or class whatsoever.
Oil Spill is about who replaces who, which magic – black or white – wins in the struggle to replace the current disaster (of non-replacement).
If we meet Greta Thurnberg we shall be sure to ask her for her views, but we are also interested in what those with nothing have to say about everything.
Collaborators
Oil Spill features the voices of a number of really existing individuals along with fictitious ‘players’ including some of the following:
Bathilde Amédée
Robert de Saint-Loup
Odett de Crécy
Laura, Palmer
Axel Heyst
Lena Sourabaya
All identities are concealed at this stage given the necessarily clandestine nature of much of the research and shooting.
Oil Spill features the voices of a number of really existing individuals along with fictitious ‘players’ including some of the following:
Bathilde Amédée
Robert de Saint-Loup
Odett de Crécy
Laura, Palmer
Axel Heyst
Lena Sourabaya
All identities are concealed at this stage given the necessarily clandestine nature of much of the research and shooting.
Help us make this film
We have received funding from Bergen City Council and support from BEK (Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts) and we need more of both to make the film.
Please get in touch if you’d like to help us:
agameoffreedom (@gmail.com)
b.seymour (@gold.ac.uk)
Films we made:
Dead the Ends (2017)
https://vimeo.com/264993554
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Press kit
Can Dialectics Break Gravity (2014; with Matthew Noel-Tod)
https://vimeo.com/219686412
Bang! (2012, dir. MNT; script B. Seymour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzp_Zj-GOKo
Olympicfield (2009)
https://vimeo.com/42503397
The London Particular (2004, with David Panos)
https://vimeo.com/220243941
Screenings:
Dead the Ends
Yale Union, Portland
Colloquium for Unpopular Culture,
NYU, New York
Spectacle Theater, New York
The Whitechapel, London
London International Film Festival 2017, ICA London
Can Dialectics Break Gravity
Artists' Film Biennial 2014, ICA, London
Bang!
Chisenhale, London
Olympicfield
BFI Southbank Experimenta , London
We have received funding from Bergen City Council and support from BEK (Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts) and we need more of both to make the film.
Please get in touch if you’d like to help us:
agameoffreedom (@gmail.com)
b.seymour (@gold.ac.uk)
Films we made:
Dead the Ends (2017)
https://vimeo.com/264993554
Press kit
Can Dialectics Break Gravity (2014; with Matthew Noel-Tod)
https://vimeo.com/219686412
Bang! (2012, dir. MNT; script B. Seymour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzp_Zj-GOKo
Olympicfield (2009)
https://vimeo.com/42503397
The London Particular (2004, with David Panos)
https://vimeo.com/220243941
Screenings:
Dead the Ends
Yale Union, Portland
Colloquium for Unpopular Culture,
NYU, New York
Spectacle Theater, New York
The Whitechapel, London
London International Film Festival 2017, ICA London
Can Dialectics Break Gravity
Artists' Film Biennial 2014, ICA, London
Bang!
Chisenhale, London
Olympicfield
BFI Southbank Experimenta , London