Buzz

Harmony between the body and landscape has a parallel in the relationship between landscape and the mind. Subbi’s paintings depict an interior landscape – worlds of harmony and memory that define the order he knew. In María Dalberg’s film Buzz (2018), the effect of landscape on the mind becomes an experiment of language, poetry and visuals. In a three-screen installation, a character sits by the sea on dark basalt rocks.

Dalberg is interested in the psychological resonances of sites and natural spaces. Using a methodology of walks, she dictates poetry in different natural spaces and analyses what effects these locations have on her function. The resulting text is a voice-over that melds with natural sounds and allows the listener to enter mental landscapes, or what Dalberg calls “mind structures.” This methodology creates a parallel with Subbi’s philosophy of an “earthly logic” that ties the human body and landscape into one.  

Buzz is a work contingent on Dalberg’s home landscape of Iceland – a distinct recognisable view of young volcanic seascapes with rugged contours. Yet, it originated in another landscape, one of a similar geological location but unrecognisable in its biodiversity – the Galapagos Islands. The text connects these varied landscapes through the same rhythmic effect on the mind created by proximity to the sea.