“Take a new ballpoint pen. The simple one. The cheapest one. The most common one. Draw a line until the pen is empty. The length of the line is equal to the distance from the chair you sit in to the seaside.”, said a teacher to his students somewhere in Belgium.
I took a new ballpoint pen. The simple one. The cheapest one. The most common one. I drew a line until the pen was empty.
Working conditions were simple, yet sufficient. I needed an office desk, a chair and a lamp. Materials I used were: paper, a ballpoint pen and a ruler. A repetitive task was performed. After two months, many hours later, the work was finished.
While drawing a line I was remembering my childhood. Those summer, carefree days spent at the Adriatic seaside with my parents and my grandma. Friends that I would meet on the first day of the arrival. Heat. Taste of salt. Suncream smell. Wizened fingertips. Hedgehogs in gardens.
While drawing a line I was daydreaming about the seaside. Teaching my son to swim. Picking ripe figs on the way to a beach. The pleasant shock in my body when I dive into the sea for the first time.
While drawing a line I was thinking what do I need to do to be able to go to the seaside.
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16 mm film depicts 99 A4-pages that are a document of the performative work. The flickering imperfect lines are transformed into endless wavy seascape.
