market sentiments
Satellite images of various landscapes: When taken from higher up, we can recognize coastlines and follow the courses of rivers. At closer range, we can differentiate between deciduous and coniferous forests, paths and roads, marshy meadows and fields. The subdued greens and browns and the mostly untouched nature convey a sense of tranquility. But the melancholy orchestral music of Arvo Pärt is soon joined by garish red and yellow lines that cross the planes, dividing them with little consideration of the existing formations.
This rhythmic process, accompanied by a musical accelerando and crescendo, races over the landscape at an increasingly fast pace, covering it with increasingly dense abstract patterns. This is beautiful to watch and, in light of the title, also sad.
Market sentiment is an economic term which refers to an atmosphere during which makes investors more or less likely to put money into a certain area. In Estonia, formerly a part of the Soviet Union which became independent in 1991, the current market sentiment is "euphoric" thanks to economically liberal laws. The lines are taken from actual real-estate registers of Estonian land which has been sold or is currently for sale.
Musil´s four-minute animation entitled Market sentiments addresses this abstract and seemingly static set of circumstances and puts it back in motion, as it in fact is: In its precise, brief form, this film makes the market pressures visible, while assuming a political stance with its inherent means.
"When seeing large forests or marshes," said Barbara Musil, "I have trouble realizing that they´re owned by individuals, that they´re property in the first place." Market sentiments gives a boost to her imagination and our own by illustrating the rapidly progressing transformation of the world into property.
(Maya McKechneay)
Translation: Steve Wilder
director's statement
Video, Animation 2007
Das Video market sentiments basiert auf einer im Rahmen einer Residency in Tallinn durchgeführten Recherche zum Investitionsboom am estnischen Immobilienmarkt.
Den aktuellen ultrapositiven market sentiments der Investoren und Spekulanten setzt diese Videoarbeit/Animation ein bewegtes Stimmungsbild vom anderen Ende der Gefühlsskala entgegen:
Melancholie, Traurigkeit und Sentimentalität vermitteln Bild und Ton der animierten Collage aus Orthofotos und Katasterplänen von zum Verkauf stehenden Landflächen in Estland. Zugleich mit der Problematik des Ausverkaufs von Land und Natur wird auf der formalen Ebene die charakteristische Ästhetik des verwendeten Bildmaterials
verhandelt.
The Movie market sentiments is based on research about the real estate boom in Estonia. Market sentiments are extremely positive, and Investors are as happy as they can be, due to the rising prices for land and houses. This movie adds another perspective to the global positive mood, and represents a sentiment, not really useful in case one wants to make big business and money.
With its melancholic and sentimental atmosphere the film refers to the problematic side of capitalism and growth, the ignorant sale of land, apparently without any sensible limits. Parallel to the real political topic the film is also experimenting with the characteristic aesthetics of ortho-photography and land cadaster-plans.
All used materials represent existing land plots in Estonia that are currently for sale.
market sentiments
2007
Estonia, Austria
4 min