Zeitgeist... video

Hjørdis Kurås (Norway)

“Wolves are probably one of the most misunderstood of the wild animals. Tales of cold bloodiness abound, in spite of the their friendly, social and intelligent traits. Often used as a scapegoat for missing domestic animals or a general threat to people, although only one person has been killed by wolf in Norway, and that was in 1800. In its symbolic use the wolf becomes a danger, an outsider, the loner, the anti-hero or the scapegoat.

The scenes in Zeitgeist is edited from a scene where at daytime a flock of wolves forces a wolf out of the group for a reason. In Zeitgeist the wolf is alone and the reason for its fear left out. The found-video a wolf uses low light and infrared to document its movement across a landscape. The eerie green light is reminiscent of the violent scenes from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan shown by Western media. Anxiety is not necessarily rational, and the source of anxiety or the target of blame can be difficult to trace. Night shot images have become known or connected to war images especially since the Gulf War, where "the US-led coalition was fighting a virtual war while the Iraqis tried to fight a traditional one- the two could not entirely meet" (Baudrillard 1995).

Periods of heightened generalized anxiety have covered much of human history, fear was a political weapon in Ancient Rome and fear dominates today's political landscape. In this political and public anxiety, or in this pattern that constitutes an ethos or Zeitgeist, "any" scapegoat may be seized upon to relieve this feeling.”

Hjørdis Kurås is educated in theater and visual art. She works as an
artist mainly in the field of videoinstallation, and has also
background from theater plays and movies. She is founder of Galleri
Barbara Hansen & 33 basement- projectroom for contemporary art, and
has arranged several seminars and workshops for young students.