Veni Vidi Nescio



2014 | HD | 4:3 | 10m

Shot in a Japanese theme park that reconstructs a Dutch town, Veni Vidi Nescio follows a sound recordist through replicas, mountains and the water that surrounds it all. Exploring projected realities, the body that holds the microphone records the sensation of dislocation and transience.

The theme park named Huis Ten Bosch in Sasebo contains 1:1 replicas of Dutch palaces, windmills and canal houses and was built to honour Japanese-Dutch trade relations. The Netherlands was the first Western country to trade with Japan but they were not allowed to step foot on the mainland and so commerce was limited to a small Island just offshore: A separated connection. Therein today lies a hyperreal Dutch enclave embedded into the mountains of Nagasaki Prefecture where cicadas chirp and the red sun leaves deep impressions on the waves that surround the island, a place neither here nor there.



This film was inspired by the writing of Dutch author Jan Hendrik Frederik Grönloh (aka Nescio), a specialist in de zee van tijd, the sea of time.

“Again the day came to an end, again the bright red above the horizon grew pale, the water in the distance kept it’s colour, but barely, darkness crept up everywhere, out of the earth, now the canal in the distance had vanished in the night. We were gloomy about all the things that had passed, and about how our lives would end while all these things continued to exist. The sky would be red again and the canal would still be there too, most likely, gold in the twilight, and they wouldn’t notice any difference.“

This film was funded in part by the Young Amsterdam Artfund (YAA) and the European Exchange Academy (EEA)

Exhibited at àngels Barcelona
and WOW Amsterdam

© christopher tym 2014