Monitoring the Unstable Earth

A (re)collection, a (re)ordering of the elements of our external world, filmed during travels in California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. A sort of “topological revue.” Salt flats, deserts, mountains, forests, cityscapes, plus meditation on Christo’s “Running Fence” and Duane Hanson’s figurative sculptures. Fantastic landscapes transmuted/reduced to their distinctive aesthetic qualities. Patterns of symmetry, of pure form emerge. Here shape and texture, colour and light overcome meaning to affect perception on a primary, visceral level. Sensations evoked by certain (sometimes archetypal) images: a profound feeling of peace, a disturbing sense of unease, a tug of nostalgia … “Michael Wallin’s ‘Monitoring the Unstable Earth’ … proceeds from the filmmaker’s intention of modeling a piece whose terms elude narrative fixations …. The eye of the camera embraces the essential surprise of the familiar – in landscapes, recurring human figures, art objects in natural and museum settings – paring away dross and fixing together a moving panorama of perceptual dares. The visuals are bonded together with an intriguing soundtrack.” – Calvin Ahlgren, San Francisco Chronicle