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- Sascha Pohle
THE SWIMMER
Two sources were used for the video: the movie “ The Swimmer ” by Frank Perry, 1968, starring Burt Lancaster and a common travel brochure.
In the video The Swimmer I take over the protagonist’s role by reenacting his swimming performance through a series of successive pools. The adapted version is set in a tourist world. As a script, I use a Thomas Cook travel brochure as a method of formulating a precise visual route. According to the order of the catalogue I swim one lap, pool by pool, page by page. The video is made on Tenerife and concludes with the 52nd pool, open- ended, pointing to an infinitive number of places, or nowhere. The reality of holiday has to resemble its image – reality becomes uniformed in order to conform the image. The video is like a topographic journey through a catalogue’s tourist world. The typology of the pool architecture, the swimmer’s loneliness in a leisure ambience, and minute-long sequences impose a melancholy and repetitive narrative over the documentary footage.
Video stills
