Schatzalp

2021, TH/AT, 360 Grad VR, 13 min, colour, stereo

Director, camera, scriptwriter, editor, producer: Marlies Pöschl

Narrator: Franziskus Abgottspon

Sound design: Peter Kutin

This enigmatic ‘VR regional novel’ intertwines everyday life in a long-term resort for European seniors in Southeast Asia with fictionalized anecdotes based on memories of home that the ‘guests’ project onto this place. The invisible narrator, Beat, leads us through a place that seems just like any typical Swiss village. And yet it is as if the scenery is slightly out of place, as if we were in a virtual rift between one place and another.

Some of the things we encounter here appear to come from Thailand - one could almost get the impression that we are not in Switzerland at all! The text of the video, performed by an actor, is an aesthetically condensed fiction, drawing from conversations between the artist and residents of the resort. The narrator’s descriptions, although spoken clearly and confidently, are muddled, sometimes seemingly blurring different places and times together, which makes experiencing this film even more disorientating. Schatzalp is the first part of a larger project on this subject.