HD animation
color: B&W
aspect ratio: vertical 16:10
32 min
Written, drawn and produced by IC-98 (Patrik Söderlund & Visa Suonpää)
Directed by IC-98 and Markus Lepistö
Animated by Markus Lepistö and Juan Duarte Regino
music composed and performed by Sink
In Nekropolis, the souls of the departed humans ascend from their tombs only to form a fluctuating storm-cloud, which first reigns over the valley of the dead, then darkens the whole earth as the souls get sucked up into the atmosphere. Souls are carried by flocks of swallows, being not just vessels but the new inhabitants of the world without us. Even in ruins, human civilization remains a problem, just as rotting biomass releases methane when arctic ice and permafrost melt. There is no transcendence, only endless circulation of pollutants, plastics, energy and matter.
Nekropolis is loosely based on John Ruskin’s lecture The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century (1884), in which he describes in metaphors the intensifying smog caused by the industrial revolution.
IC-98 (originally Iconoclast) is an artist duo comprising Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää. IC-98 projects take the form of installations combining research, text, drawing and animation. They are best known for their animatedfilm installations, which combine classical drawing and digital effects, often depicting landscapes shaped by interlaced forces of nature and technology, navigation and exploitation, climate and migration. IC-98 represented Finland at the Venice Art Biennale 2015.
IC-98’s intensely abstracted, readily identifiable visual language weaves myriad bridges between the material and mythical, the individual and the collective, nature and culture. Their work is rooted in investigations into the body politic, social formations, architectural constructions, different ecologies and the presence of human and natural history in everyday life. They often collaborate closely with other arts professionals such as poets, composers and architects.