Marine Target

Lukas Marxt, Viennale regular who created RALF’S COLOURS, continues the disquieting exploration of the Salton Sea begun in IMPERIAL IRRIGATION: a site haunted by traces of catastrophic US nuclear testing. The images and sounds, at first, feign impersonality: as a drone camera slowly descends to a small, long abandoned “marine target” in the water, a mechanically produced voice rattles off the dry, “official”, military facts and figures. The sights of dead birds, wire fences that point to a void, and ominously broken pipelines narrate the hints of a darker backstory. (Adrian Martin)

This film will be shown as part of the screening SHORT FILM PROGRAMME 1: MIRAGES.