Filming through a fish-eye camera lens and accompanying the image flow with distorted electronic sounds, video art pioneers Steina and Woody Vasulka drive through industrial cityscapes, suburban areas and rural districts. In the beginning In Search of the Castle appears to be a regular home video of an everyday activity. The scenery outside the car is naturalistic and familiar. But as the search progresses the recording is invaded by signal disturbances that multiplies, layers and pixilates the images, in some passages completely beyond recognition. Furthermore, the soundtrack seems to follow (or be generated by) the disturbances and leaves no audible traces of real sound. The “search” enters into an abstract, hybrid environment, where the physical and the electronic, lived experience and technology, merge into an experimental exploration of information noise that challenges conventional frames of perception and sense of orientation.

(Image: Copyright the artist and imai Duesseldorf, 2012)