Library Stack
Guests
Library Stack will be discussing their recent film Slow Dissolve, and the publication series The Capital Dialogues.
About Slow Dissolve:
At a German institute for polar science, glacial ice from before human civilization is examined to decode traces of the ancient atmosphere. Trapped oxygen and dust particles help scientists understand planetary history and improve their climate models. Many of the samples come from a Danish ice core repository, where an archivist prepares specimens to be shipped to outside laboratories. The film then shifts to the production facility of the Norwegian data storage company Piql, which prints customer data onto analog reels of 35mm film for “permanent” underground storage in the Arctic. We see how the material processes of cinema have become a post-apocalyptic data container. Slow Dissolve counterposes two cycles of information, with competing visions of the future. Data drawn from ancient ice reveals the coming dissolution of our known climate; while human data, materialized onto film, is buried in the Arctic in an attempt to shield it from the effects of our own damage.
