The Structure of the Film
The camera was mounted facing east to capture the morning sun every day. The camera started exposing on April 6th, 2023 at 5:30 a.m. with an exposure time of 8 seconds per frame, gradually ramping up exposure times from frame to frame, we passed 9 seconds, we reached 10 seconds of exposures per frame, and so on... After dawn the end of the first roll was reached with exposure times already at 21 seconds. The exposure times were continuously increased throughout the film: the first roll of film captured the first day, the second roll captured the following night as well as the following day, the third roll already recorded the following two nights and days, etc...
The start of the film in spring lets the sun slowly rise in the middle of the frame. All nights calmly unfold in front of our eyes, we witness the whole year without interruptions. We pass through weather changes, cloud formations are moving rapidly over our heads changing their directions swiftly, all mirrored in the lake, enhancing our perception of the sky’s motion. As time passes faster, the change of night and day becomes rhythmic, contrasting with each other. All sounds support every movement. The rhythm of day and night does not stop accelerating and intensifies throughout the picture. After 19 minutes of the film had been continuously recorded over almost 8 months, on December 1st, 2023, the exposure times were still getting longer and longer and film recording entered a new phase: each exposure lasted 24 hours or 86,400 seconds. Thus when played back, we see time passing 10,000 times faster than at the beginning of the film.
These 17 seconds reveal the motion of the sun’s path across the sky: from winter on the right side of the frame, through spring in the middle of the image to the left, where it rises in summer.
The structure of the film reached a plateau as the camera continued to expose all day and night long, 24 hours per frame, until the camera was stopped 423 days later, on January 27th, 2025. This last sequence of the film, recorded in 423 days, lasts 423 frames in playback or only 17 seconds in our real time. These 17 seconds reveal the motion of the sun’s path across the sky: from winter on the right side of the frame, through spring in the middle of the image to the left, where it rises in summer. Here the path of the sun changes its direction and moves back through autumn in the middle of the frame to the right of the frame, or winter again. Of course we can continue this cycle FOREVER…FOREVER
