Search Film, Company, People...

OUT OF SIGHT

By Kacim STEETS

Documentary - Development 2021

Out of Sight, a VR documentary installation, invites participants to encounter environments devastated by contemporary human activity.

- Year of production
- 2021
- Genres
- Documentary, VR - AR
- Countries
- CANADA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Budget
- 0.6 - 1 M$
- Duration
- 85 mn
- Director(s)
- Kacim STEETS
- Writer(s)
- Stephane LAVOIE
- Producer(s)
- Frederic BOHBOT (BUNBURY FILMS INC.)
- Synopsis
- Description of the installation
  
  Out of Sight lives on the VR headsets participants put once in the exhibit or, alternatively, at home. It’s comprised of five environments ravaged by human waste, each with five curated displays (VR headset ‘entry points’). Each entry point consists of an approximately 7-minute loop of 360-degree footage, rotating participants through a continuous virtual space. A common feature is the foreboding sense of placelessness one feels when stepping into these settings— waste consumes the field of view.
  
  A cityscape under toxic smog (potential locations include Jodhpur, India or Tangshan, China): A dense grey fog dominates the field of view regardless of where one looks. At first, the participant is alone, left to wonder where they are. Here, the waste is airborne and all-pervasive. Its remnants, a slimy black dust coats the surface of the expanse. As the city eventually becomes apparent, locals describe the place, and the symptoms attributable to its pollution.
  (Primary) A view from within an open public space in the central district of the city. Local residents wearing white masks begin to cross the field of view. Buildings, barely distinguishable in the distance, are all nearly identical. There’s low hum of nearby traffic, the faint sounds of footsteps.
  An oceanic garbage patch (potential locations exists between the islands of Roatan and Cayos Cochinos, of the coast of Honduras, or the central North Pacific Ocean): The surface has a slow fluid motion. A bright layer of litter sways hypnotically into the distance. The participant is slowly privy to the tragedy before them— a seaborne trash vortex. A fisherman describes how the waste patch has grown in recent years.
  (Primary) A view from above water. Marine debris blankets the surface of the water. The sound of birds and the wind occasionally fill the void. A human presence is felt through our remains, suffocating the ocean below.
  
  A toxic e-waste dump (a potential location exists in Agbogbloshie, Ghana): People are hardly discernible from the mounds of detailed debris: phones, refrigerators, TVs— old consumer electronics. Muddy lanes thread between waste piles. Thick black smoke blows into the field of view, making its way onto the haze. Hammers pound on metal. Workers cough. They’re business owners, their families and employees. They describe the place as their home and list their symptoms.
  
  A clear-cut forest (a potential location exists in the Cerrado savanna, Brazil): The participant finds themselves in a secluded section of an Amazonian forest— or what was once a forest. Here, the shock is not so much what’s been left behind, but what’s has been taken away. It’s not waste, but a wasted landscape. Humans have wreaked havoc what is now a naked flatland. There are no buildings or signs of civilization. Tracks from the machinery suggest humans cannot be far, and that their passing is recent.
  
  And many more landscapes.