The Mountain

7’33’’ video, 2.4:1

A No Filter Films Film

Actor: Michael Della Giustina

People used to come to see the mountain 

Did they really see it?

Or had they invented it 

To protect them from what was to come

They sent me back 

Back to the start 

To change what has already begun 

The Mountain is a dystopian short film that takes as its point of reference the view from the window at Lumen museum. The short film visualises the concept of Hyperscape by creating a narrative in which landscape is no longer “real”, but experienced through the virtual gaze, as if in front of a screen. A criticism of the extent to which the idea of landscape has become an artificial construct in the collective imagination, and the need to reveal the layers inherent in the present anthropocene.

The panoramic view of a supposed “untouched” nature becomes entangled in its own hyperscape. A speculative visualisation of the Anthropocene, the film breaks the safe stance of the visitor who contemplates nature “at a distance”. Instead, the human is no longer in control of nature, but becomes lost in the infinite layers of a speculative anthropocene.

Through our actions we are writing the future of the planet, and living the consequences of the past. Landscape is no longer a solid ground beneath our feet, but has become a hyperspace in which we wander towards an “uncontrollable dystopian eventuality”.

“Present Anthropocene landscapes exhibit a dynamic between techno-utopian aspiration and uncontrollable dystopian eventuality.”

T. J. Demos

The Scopic and the Scaped: Anthropocene Landscapes