Cloud of Unknowing
Karjalainen Hannu
A severed head floats as if in a weightless state, in a grainy, moving image. The camera circles the head slowly. Occasionally the head vanishes behind a thick wall of scratches. The title of this piece is a reference to the book The Cloud of Unknowing, written by an anonymous medieval mystic. According to the book there is a cloud of unknowing between man and God, and God is forever obscured by the cloud. Inspired by both this religious metaphor and scientific imagery this video plays with notions of presence and absence.
Production Year
2004
Duration
00:01:49
Tyyppi
Asiasana
abstraction, black-and-white films, body image, experimental films, god, head, religion and religions, still lives, weightlessness
Original Title
Cloud of Unknowing
Finnish Title
Cloud of Unknowing
English Title
Cloud of Unknowing
Production Countries
Finland
Dialogue
No
Aspect Ratio
4:3
Sound
No
Cast
Hannu Karjalainen (Author), Hannu Karjalainen (Director)
Press Photos
Hannu Karjalainen is an internationally acclaimed Finnish artist who lives and works in Helsinki. He graduated as MFA from the University of Industrial Arts Helsinki in 2005. His video and sound installations and films have been presented in museums, galleries and festivals since 2003 and he has held solo exhibitions participated in numerous group exhibitions and film screenings in Finland and abroad in e.g. Oslo, Zürich and Berlin. He was selected as the Young Artist of the Year in 2009.
10 works