Marcel Odenbach's 31-minute video In stillen Teichen lauern Krokodile [Crocodiles lurk in quiet waters] is a sensitively woven web of archive material, personal recordings and sounds that focus on the genocide committed in 1994 by the Hutu on the Tutsi in Rwanda. The artist himself describes his work as “a subjective documentation on a drama in seven chapters”. He thus excludes his video being understood as a neutral and comprehensive view of the genocide in Rwanda, thus pinpointing his individual- and thus inherently partial-perspective. After a short introduction, the first chapter of the work, which is projected onto two channels, shows a paradisiacal view of Rwanda to music from Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The camera lens slowly sweeps across a beautiful, hilly landscape. Men, women and children are seen eating, working and living together. Into the representation of this harmonious idyll, a sound-at first nearly inaudible, then slowly more disturbing-enters into the film. After a while it is identifiable as a badly tuned radio station. [...]

Katrin Hunsicker
Translation: Elizabeth Gahbler


Catalogue excerpt
fast forward 2. The Power of Motion
Media Art Sammlung Goetz
Editors: Ingvild Goetz and Stephan Urbaschek
Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz, 2010