e-flux presents Ecology After Nature: Industries, Communities, and Environmental Memory
The Flood
Ivar Veermäe
2018–19
11 Minutes
Estonia
Date
October 11–24, 2020
Join us on e-flux Video & Film for an online screening of Ivar Veermäe’s The Flood (2018–19), on view from Sunday, October 11 through Saturday, October 24, 2020.
Shot in Estonia, The Flood is a look at cryptocurrency: on the one hand, a research into its various mining practices and energy needs; and on the other hand, an abstract exploration of its forms, concepts, and ideas. Virtual currency—specifically, Bitcoin—offers an attempt to withdraw from the existing financial system, with the objective to release the production of money from the central banks’ control by reinstating the idea of money as an agreement. However, while this idea of decentralization is attractive, it is inevitably accompanied by the risk that new centers or bubbles will arise. Small mines are replaced by increasingly bigger ones, some of which are located on the premises of power stations— in a cost-effective bid to cope with the ever-vaster demand for energy needed to mine virtual currencies. The video, part of a three-channel installation, combines footage from Estonian oil shale mines (a major energy resource in Estonia) and from home-scale and industrial-scale crypto mines, alongside 3D animations that recall the original use of the powerful graphic cards enlisted to encrypt and decrypt currency transactions.
The Flood is presented here as one of two films in Extraction by Different Means, the fifth of six programs in the online film and discussion series Ecology After Nature: Industries, Communities, and Environmental Memory programmed by Lukas Brasiskis for e-flux Video & Film.
Ecology After Nature runs from August 14 through November 8, 2020. The films in Part Five will screen for two weeks, and subsequent parts will follow bi-weekly, with new films screened every other Sunday.
For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.
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