Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

Teufelsberg is an artificial hill in the outskirts of Berlin. It was built by the American Allies with the rubble of a city destroyed by World War II in the 20 years that followed its end. Created out of debris on Grunewald?s plateau, Teufelsberg became the highest viewing point in Berlin and a favourable location for military observation of the city. Due to the evident vantage point it could offer, in the late 50s a permanent listening station for short-wave frequencies and encrypted messages, was built on Teufelsberg, to be run by the National Security Agency until the fall of the Berlin wall. With the end of the Cold War, the listening station became redundant, it was closed down and its equipment removed. ?Berg? investigates a historical site through an alternate shift between documentary and fictional representation. A soundscape produced from samples from a series of mainstream Spy Movies overlaps a carefully edited selection of classic shots, inspired by the most repetitive cinematic clichés to be found in the ?espionage genre?. If visuals and sound have a linear continuity in certain sections of the film, as the video unfolds, it becomes clearer that the voiceover belongs to a less recognizable past ? more or less fictional - whilst the location, Teufelsberg is depicted in its current condition.

Valentina Ferrandes is an Italian artist currently living and working in Berlin. Using video, photography and sound, she investigates possible relations between collective memory, social behaviour and geographic and architectural sites. She graduated from Bologna University in Disciplines of Art, Music and Drama, before enrolling in a BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, where she graduated in 2009. In 2008 she was selected to take part in a Recidency in the New Media Art department of China Academy of Art. Since 2009 her works have been shown internationally in private galleries, experimental video festivals and museums. Exhibitions include The Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, the European Media Art Festival, Celeste Prize, Eastern Bloc Centre for New Media and Interdisciplinary Art in Montreal, Canada, Athens Video Art Festival.