Are you in love?

 

video projects
See clip
Catalogue World Wide Video Festival 1998
After studying at the ‘Höhere Schule für Gestaltung’ in Zürich, Mooibroek went to the Audio-visual Departament of the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam after which she went on to complete the second phase course at the Sandberg Institute, also in Amsterdam. With her previous video production, entitled ‘Hoe deze genodigden praten- Wi die gescht reded’ (1997), she won the prize for the best Swiss shortfilm. In this experimental video she dealt with sound and pronunciation, and tried to make the subject ‘language’ discernible. She also uses text and image in this new work. “Do you find eating and swallowing noises annoying to hear? Would you like a bodyguard or do you feel safe enough? Do you like shopping?”
The video starts with these kinds of disconnected questions, alternated with images of a boy in glacierscape. The boy, in shorts, walks about this desolate place in a curious fashion. His destination is unclear, but the camera resolutely follows him. “Do your parents say things like: dark sunglasses for dark people? Would you think it horrible if your husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend turned to prostitution?” The questions – not the most ordinary – seem to be grabbed out of the air, and they go on and on. The viewer gets no answers. Perhaps we are supposed to think about them. “Is love murder?” is shouted out twice. “Are you in love?” With these questions the video reaches a short peak, and then carries on again in a non-linear way. This story can go on for ages, just as the boy can go in any random direction. The end, like the beginning, is indefinable.

Text: Marieke van Hal
Catalogue World Wide Video Festival of the year 1998