The 35mm film The Long Road was filmed in the Mojave Desert and pursues Barba’s previous investigations of the undercurrents of textual and visual narratives. Historical traces of the recent past, as markers of past actions, open up the discordances of naturalized environments. The Long Road delineates its hidden tracks in the constant ambiguities of the landscape's functional and aesthetic qualities: Viewed from above, the oval of a road – a loop without a finish line – inscribes itself into the landscape as if it were a sign. The film scrutinizes a huge provisional racetrack once a site of time-sensitive activity, this particular racetrack, no longer in use, is gradually being absorbed back into its dusty environment. The rupture between past and future is accompanied by a double-stranded soundtrack with music by Jan St. Werner and a reading of Robert Creeley’s eponymous poem by the author himself.
The Long Road, 2010
35mm film, color, optical sound, 6:14 min
Images 1, 2, 3: Film still © Rosa Barba
Image 4: Installation view at Tate Modern, London, 2010 © Rosa Barba
The Long Road, 2010 has been on display at the following locations:
MassMoCA, North Adams, 2014-2015
Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, USA, 2012
Lousiana Museum, Humblebaek, Denmark, 2012
Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2011
Tate Modern, London, 2010
Centre d'Art de l'ile de Vassivière, France, 2010
The Long Road, 2010 has been screened at the following locations:
ICA London, 2013
Gene Siskel Center, Chicago, 2013
Filmforum, Gorizia, 2013
Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013
Dundee Art Center, Glasgow, 2011
Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern, 2010