The vitamin of the sun – Vitamin-D – is absorbed in the body as cholecalciferol. This chemical is necessary for many biological functions, but is also highly poisonous in large doses. It is used in pest control, primarily for nocturnal, light-averse animals like rats.
Rats, dead and alive, Vitamin-D supplements, daylight lamps, and projectors; Cholecalciferol contemplates the violent role light can play, and our relationship with the living beings around us.
LANGUAGE : English COUNTRY : Norway YEAR : 2023 DURATION : 4m DIRECTORS, ARTISTS : Ruth & Alexander Made with help from Catherine Owen, James Lee, Sarah Schipschack, Polar Film Lab and Tromsø Kunstforening.
Director statement : Ruth & Alexander work at the intersection between production and labour, systems of power, the ethical systems which underpin them and the rituals that ultimately appear. Through analogue cinefilm, digital media, installation and curation, they explore ideas
around access and the infrastructures through which power, information and resources are distributed. Cholecalciferol is part of a long-term research project about distribution, The Solar Library, using the sun as a tool to think about resource distribution (the sun/s being an ur-distributor), relating physical processes of distribution (the entropic movement of heat and the flow of light) to political, economic, social, biological and informational modes of distribution.
It is about the sun, libraries (the library being a collection, but also a model of resource distribution), and everything in between, and is explicitly maximalist in its approach – collecting stories, images, videos, texts, sounds; about goblin sharks attracted to the electromagnetic field of subsea optical cables, about using vitamin-D (the ‘sun-vitamin’ Cholecalciferol) as a pesticide mostly targeting light-phobic rodents, and the photic sneeze reflex.
Bio : Ruth & Alexander are Scottish artists, based in Tromsø, Norway. They graduated with a BA(Hons) in Time Based Art & Digital Film (2012) from Duncan of Jordanstone and with an MA in Contemporary Art (2018) from Tromsø Academy of Art. Their practice seeks to work with others, to engage and empower an artist-led, autonomous art scene, and to operate outwith traditional distribution modes. Along with James S. Lee, they are co-founders of the eco-focused Failure, Understanding, Care (& Kunst) and with Sarah Schipschack, co-founders pf the kiosk-cinema, [KINOBOX]. They are part of the collective running Polar Film Lab, advancing the experimental use of analogue cine-film.
Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.
Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.
