Bigert & Bergström: The Weather War (2012, 2 min excerpt)

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Distribution: Filmform – The Art and Video Archive

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ENG:
The Weather War is a documentary/art film about man’s attempts to control the weather and harness it for his own purposes. In a blend of land art performance and road movie, artist duo Bigert & Bergström travel to the US tornado belt with their special machine-sculpture, the Tornado Diverter. The goal is to stop a tornado.
The film also presents historical examples of how the science of meteorology developed in symbiosis with military goals, and how these visions evolved into modern ideas of geo-engineering—controversial ideas with sociopolitical consequences that spotlight the big question of who is really entitled to modified weather.
From a larger perspective, the film features the problems faced worldwide due to global climate change. How do we meet those challenges? Do we adapt? Or do we wage war against increasingly aggressive weather? Bangladesh is building protective walls against coming floods; China shoots rockets into threatening clouds; and in Italy, antihail cannons are fired to protect the year’s wine harvest.
This is the final film of the trilogy, which Bigert & Bergström have been working with since 2002, dealing with the human obsession with control. The subject of first film, The Last Supper (2005), is the last meal offered to the death row inmates prior their execution. The Life Extended, the second film from 2009, focuses on the contemporary dream of a longer, or even of an eternal life.