Filmmaker Sara Bonaventura journeys through time and space, from the Mediterranean sea to the waters of Asia.
For the video for Italian noise artist Stromboli’s gorgeous ambient composition ‘Dive’, filmmaker Sara Bonaventura wanted to join the dots between the Mediterranean sea of her native Italy and the waters of Singapore, Hong Kong, Bali and Australia, all of which provide the setting for the dream-like visual.
“Dive is a nocturnal dream staging a journey of initiation”, explains Bonaventura, “blending classical Mediterranean culture with rituals of the Far East, between Plato’s cave and Hindu funerals by the ocean”. Returning to images of water and aquatic life, the filmmaker draws on the shared Greek etymology of the words ‘dolphin’ and ‘womb’, configuring this oceanic journey as one of transfiguration and rebirth.
‘Dive’ is taken from Stromboli’s second album, Ghosting, a dense and frazzled ambient departure from his more industrial-leaning work, released on Berlin-based imprint Oltrarno Recordings. He describes the track as “the sound stratification of an endless loop obtained with an old Revox A77 tape recorder, processing drones, FM waves of synths and steel guitars.”
“The patch on the Korg MS20 recreates the redundant effect of dub reminiscences”, he continues. “The answer sound echoes the movement of the waves, producing an increasingly dazzling reflection, culminating with a loss of consciousness.”
It’s this hazy dream logic that Bonaventura captures perfectly in the layered imagery and distorted visual effects of the video, weaving together a somnambulist landscape through which we can explore Stromboli’s sounds.
For more information about Sara Bonaventura and her work you can visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Ghosting is out now, on Oltrarno Recordings.
Watch next: Shohei Fujimoto explores the structure of light in density compression [2020]
