Old Days - Young Nights
The video shows eighteen grey-haired people in colorful leisure wear on playground equipment. They swing, rock, slide or turn like children – but at night, only dimly illuminated by the moon or spotlights. They secretly return to the place of their childhood, having aged many years.
This video work is intended to reflect on aging and on the often-perceived lack of function of older people within society. For most, entering so-called retirement means a major change in their own life story. The working person (homo faber) now becomes a playing person (homo ludens) again – thrown out of a long period of gainful employment, out of professional contexts and responsibilities. But what happens next? He or she may ask him or herself about the nonsense and sense of life and finds him or herself in a state of limbo and deliberation. The rocking, bouncing, sliding and turning of the protagonists visualizes exactly this state: up and down, back and forth, up and down, round and round.
The constantly repeating movements are reflected in the video loop. The individual scenes are presented on five differently sized flat screens in landscape and portrait format. Only one device can be seen on each video, which is used by four to five people: a swing, a seesaw, a slide, a rotating half-globe and a spring seasaw.
Each video has its own sound and music.
TEAM
DOP: Thomas Kutschker; Assistance: Lisa Meier and Rhys Martin; Costumes: Lisa Meier;
Actors: Claudia Baumbach, Alfred Banze, Regina Bärtschi, Robert Berghoff, Martina Bieräugel, Michael Blume, Janusz Cichocki, Ursula Damm, Francisco Degrossi, Eva Günther, Kathy Jähnig, Rhys Martin, Lisa Meier, Karin Muehlhoff, Silvia Pohl, Salim Samai, Harald Schmidt, Siegfried Zielinski;
Thanks to: Vera Wendland, ZAV-Künstlervermittlung Berlin;
Color Grading: Till Beckmann; Music: Alfred Banze; Foley Artist: Peter Sandmann; Sound Editing: Joh Weisgerber; Sound Design: Christian Obermaier; Concept, Directing, Editing: Anna Anders