Sequence Cut
The work Sequence Cut presents a constantly changing collage featuring both archaeologists and construction workers at the Nya Lödöse site, Gothenburg (Sweden). The installation is comprised of looped projected video and sound, the focus of the work being the labor at and around the dig site of both the archaeological teams and construction workers.
Interested in the immediately apparent formal similarities between both practices, Rose Borthwick observed the problematic and contradictory relationship between contractual archaeology and the commercial development companies that provide the archaeologists with work. The installation attempts to show the connection between the spatial and temporal; that of the cut into the land which simultaneously exposes an unknown past and evidences the destructive activity of the present.
On Rose Borthwick’s first visit to the dig, she was inspired by the amount of simultaneous activity – of multiple areas being interrogated by the workers through direct contact with the earth. Rose was interested in the rhythms of these repetitious and physical actions, and the cacophonous sounds created by using the tools to carry out this choreography of archaeological labor.
The archaeological excavation was taking place on both large- and small-scale levels: careful scraping with trowels of tiny areas of soil beside huge pneumatic drills shattering the surface of rock under the same tent. This work was also happening directly alongside construction work. At first glance both industries appeared incredibly similar (high visibility safety wear, the heavy machinery used including drills). This became something Rose wanted to expand and exploit through documenting and then creating a series of ambiguous close up shots of workers and their actions: hands, tools, and machinery.
The installation presents layered and continuously moving sequences. Rose was interested in the potential of sound and image to transform space through reproducibility of motions and layers. Using methods of deconstruction, the video footage and sound recordings were reduced to small parts that Rose then edited in new ways, selecting, focusing, and zooming in on certain aspects while at the same time eliminating other information; cutting and collaging image and sound to both the content and ideas of the work.
Rose’s encounters with the site also left her struck by how close to the surface the archaeological team was working. They were digging one meter down to discover material evidence from 500 years in the past. Notions of arbitrary measurement systems and units and the rhythm of the workers influenced how Rose worked with time in relation to the footage. It became a way to structure and organize the images by slowing clips down, reversing and repeating sequences.
Interviews with both the conservator and archaeologists helped inform Rose’s approach to the project. A key moment was discovering that 95 percent of all archaeology carried out in Sweden is contract archaeology, therefore only happening in order to make way for new construction. Digging and excavating is “destructive research” and something to be avoided if possible: “Once you dig it’s gone”. This potentially problematic research activity alongside the relationship with construction between the spatial and temporal; that of the cut into the land which exposed an unknown past and evidences the activity of the present.
For the video see:
Original installation: three-channel video projection, with sound in collaboration with Daniel Skevington
For more information about Nya Lödöse: Sequence Cut and about Rose Borthwick follow these links:
The text reproduced above was originally published by Rose Borthwick in 2016 in Can You Dig It: What Happens When Ten Artists Engage with Archaeological Practices?, pp. 38-41. Gothenburg: Valand Academy: University of Gothenburg.
For more information about Can You Dig It?, check out that project’s site:
