rift

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RIFT BY HC GILJE
6'30"
COLOUR

With rift, HC Gilje magnifies the violent transformation of crude oil into colourful plastic wrappers for consumer goods, resulting in flickering microscopic textures. The film conveys patterns of transformation that exist across multiple scales of geologic time: from the contribution of petrochemicals in the formation of plastic, following the accumulation of layers upon layers of sediment, to the longevity of discarded consumer product containers that add to the accumulating heap of plastic in the oceans and in the ground. As a marker of the Capitalocene, plastic has a much longer duration than the items it wraps, the people who bought it or the companies that made it. Yet rift is also a sheer celebration of motion, energy and colour, and an homage to the New Zealand artist and motion enthusiast Len Lye, with an accompanying soundtrack by Justin Bennett.