Number Nine

Guido van der Werve refuses to turn as the world turns. He joins a group of Russian scientists on a trip to the peak of the earth: 90 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude. Atop of the axis of our world, he treads against the rotation direction of the earth for 24 hours. The performance was recorded digitally with a photo camera, which was subsequently turned into a time-lapse film on HD video. The sun floats by in an almost horizontal line. Clouds move in the opposite direction. The night will only come in a few months' time. The lonely artist is at the centre of the screen, all alone on waves of ice. He presents himself as someone who lets life slip by - but essentially he is a romantic hero, who exposes the controlling nature of time and captures it on film.