BUG OUT

Video forms the main fabric of BUG OUT, a split screen documented journey snaking through Berlin’s tourist locations.

Interspersed throughout the timeline is footage sourced from the internet that relates to our conversations around high and low class modes of travel, fake news, tourist behaviour and hyper- mechanical reproduction.

The different temporalities of tourism - the city-break; live/work ex-pat cultural class; overseas experiencer all reveal contradictions embedded in the fabled journey of ‘finding one’s self’.

Reproducing the same images of the same locations. The Eiffel Tower exists on countless SD cards, and is scattered all over the internet. Why leave the house?

We collaboratively wrote a monologue taking inspiration from the relentless, in-character trip taken by actor Kip Pardue as “Viktor”, directed by Roger Avary for the 2002 film, Rules of Attraction (based on the Brett Easton Ellis book of the same name). “Viktor takes a trip” - to Europe, and the hedonistic montage reveals an privileged college student. As the ultimate experiencer, he kills time until encounters manifest themselves. A self induced existential crisis concludes his trip. “I no longer know who I am, and I feel like the ghost of a total stranger.“

Trust the tale not the teller.

Different creative processes respond to these ideas in a variety of ways. Iris Bauer (alobhe) was invited to make audio works in response to footage sourced from the internet as well as contributing an audio visual clip of a festival campsite at the break of dawn. Cut-up day-tripper narratives are seen overlaid with a chopped and screwed frenetic audio mix.

From 2005-2010, frictions between young local gangs in the suburbs of Glasgow and across the Scottish central belt (yung teams, fleeto(s), sqwads) bled onto YouTube, in the form of diss (as in disrespect) mixes and photo montages. Hardcore rather than hiphop provides the backing for call- outs between groups, fuelling/enjoying the conflict. In their original format these uploads are characterised by their spontaneous low fidelity. Theo Burt has selected and meticulously edited the audio components as well as transcribing the vocals.

Athens based musician 3fragments (Marion Goix) has contributed in the form of a mix comprising of field recording, original music and a testimony which threads through the video both with visuals and without.

Duration approx. 32 mins, includes audio and visual components.