Tobias Yves Zintel.

Earthly Powers

Date: 2011
Length: 38:00 min.
Format: 16:9
Specifications: Colour, Sound, Single Channel
Courtesy Barbara Gross Galerie

Deserted hotels, run down bungalows and garbage are all that remain to remind us of the Catskills of the 50s to the 70s. In those days, this region in Upstate New York was a holiday paradise offering vaudevilles, comedy shows and Broadway pre-releases. In Zintel’s experimental documentary, the Munich band Pollyester perform in those summer resorts, nowadays a mere shadow of their past selves. Between musical performances and views of abandoned places, the inhabitants of the small artists’ colony talk about their lives in the Catskill Mountains. The Church of The Little Green Man, a deconsecrated church with a maypole, where Mike Osterhout celebrates anti-dogmatic performance masses with his community, is the central meeting point for several generations: with his photo series, Raymon Elouza documents  the structural change and challenges the American dream as an anachronism. Al Defino, who accompanied Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and other stars on his guitar during the resort’s glory days. tells of better times. New York producer Josh Druckman, who moved there and turned an old farmhouse into a recording studio, is also portrayed. The former dancer Beverly Spiri contributes her voice to the Pollyester recordings made there. Zintel’s work, named after Anthony Burgess’ novel “Earthly Power”, mixes documentary and incidental material, refers back to the visual language of music clips and explores the possibilities of artistic appropriation.

Larissa. Berger

Interview:

► 1. Your work has been chosen among over 2000 festival entries to participate in VIDEONALE.14. In which context do you prefer to present your work, festival/cinema context or exhibition?

I like both forms of presentation. And what kind of difference does the respective mode of presentation mean for you / your work? The distinction between festival/cinema and exhibition is not that important for my work because I work between performance, documentary, theatre, film & music.

► 2. Art can be seen as a mirror that registers and reflects life or as a tool that transforms it. Is there a particular theme, concept or problem your art addresses the most?

My approach is: neutrality, curiosity and disrespect for ideas.
My concept is: Interest in all kind of systems: the specific rules, rituals, confines, codes & languages etc.

► 3. In which way is the video medium an excellent possibility to express your intended subjects, especially in contrast to other media you use? Or do you work exclusively with video?

I exclusivley work with video, when I work with installation, performance then always as a part of the "moving image". The structural possibilities of video are widespred:  video can be timebased & spacebased, visually and auditive, live and captured, abstract and concrete.