What can the Fata Morgana do to our thinking? It is brief. It leads us astray. It arises under duress and pressure. It is always unrealized. It can neither be held nor captured. It stimulates the imagination. It lets cities grow on the sea and temporarily connects landscapes. It is not disconnected from reality, but it is also not really there. Its story cannot be told in a linear way; but it is kept in motion by the people who tell it, but also the people who hear it. The Fata Morgana can be a brieftopia showing us that the longed for land always vanishes. It can be the unreachable destination, but it does not serve for myths of origin: when we look back, it is long gone.
The following clip shows an experimental set-up from my studio in which I play with the possibilities of dissolving and transforming images. The sound I added is an excerpt from the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ film Tokyo-Ga (1985). The piece of the same name can be found on the LP Dick Tracy – Musique Originale de “Tokyo-Ga”. Wenders’ movie is a journey and a journal. He goes to Tokyo in search of the imaginary Tokyo that filmmaker Ozu Yasujirō brought to life in his films. But of course, Ozu’s imaginary turns out to be a Fata Morgana for Wenders. Ozu’s films refer to a place that is somewhere else or somewhen else. When Wenders arrives, he finds nothing but traces. The territory has dissolved. But then again of course, we’re talking about a film by Wim Wenders: moving through the landscape where he thought he would find what he was looking for, he finds other things, people, stories, all of which become part of Ozu’s story, a new but no less subjective Tokyo.