Fear of Flying

FEAR OF FLYING, HD video, ANNIKA LARSSON 2019
Research, Direction, Cinematography, Montage, Sound and Production: Annika Larsson / Additional Camera: Bernadette Paasen and Vladyslav Kamenskyy / Sound & Interviewer : Ewa Einhorn / Sound technication: Joe Ruckelshausen / Research Assistant: Isabel Gatzke / Production Assistant: Paul Niedermayer / VR Technicians: Christian Möller (INVR) / CGI and 3D: Stefan Kernjak, Stephanie Schwartzzimmer, Pond (Video Footage Bank) Participants: Silva Rinuccia, Bruna, Isabel, Yvonne Bruder, Ulf Bruder, Dasha Zorkina, Josephine Freiberg, Chris Olano, Moritz Baum, Katja Reinbold, Emma Reinbold, Michel Wagenschütz a.o

Y

I’m super excited

L

Now I’m a bit nervous

B

My hands are all wet and sweaty

S

That’s okay

Trascription from FEAR OF FLYING, Annika Larsson 2019.

G

Here are big, white, similar to beams… I can’t describe it further, what it could be. Here they are spreading and fragmenting… Hm, this is maybe quite mystical.

M

Is that a little uncomfortable, isn’t it?

G

No, it’s not uncomfortable, because I know you are here.

M

There was this little moment, I don’t know if you recognized, where I was… where I got scared, because actually I had this feeling… Well, because I knew that if I would have been really under water at this point, then it would have hit me with it’s flapper and strike dead. And that was quasi such a confusing moment in the experience because it was bodily without… It was not physical but it felt physical.

E

Is that feeling similar to a dream? When you are sleeping and dreaming? Or ist it something completely else?

M

No, a dream was… A dream is better.

E

Dream…

M

Because in a dream I can start swimming….

E

And in your dreams are you scared?

M

Yes sure, yes yes, it can…

E

Everyone is afraid in dreams, often something terrible happens…. In dreams.

M

Yes sure.

E

Now I’m not afraid of the height anymore.

M

Are you walking through the air? Or are you still on the plank?

E

I’m falling down!

M

Is everything okay?

E

Great!

E

Is everything okay?

E

I think, I am… Oh, I’m down.

M

And? Are you still alive?

G

Did you fall down?

E

I am down. I’m at the same spot again. The elevator…

G

Did you fall down?

E

Yes, it was really very quickly down. I guess, I have wet hands.

M

Maybe you cried too!

K

Yes, it was…

M

137

E

Is it good or bad? I have no idea.

G

This is really high. Well, for me…

K

This is exciting!

E

Yes…

K

Quite at the beginning of the whole thing I had not yet noticed my superpowers. There I still felt very human.

E

Are you a bit exhausted now?

K

I’m super excited, yes.

K

I believe, it calmed down in the meantime.

M

It is even higher now.

K

It is even higher now.

K

Exactly 530.

M

See, these are the steps. Do it again and again…

K

Yes.

R

Why do you shoot off the ball?

S

Out of fear right? Well, I was immediately in this wold…

R

But are you afraid of this whale?

S

Yes! Because one was on this wreck and this…

S

It wasn’t a beautiful moment?

S

The thing came and looked at me and was paddling with this whaleflapper…

S

I was underwater.

S

Yes yes, but I tried…

S

Crazy, crazy. It is fun but you dive completely into the other world.

L

Oh, now I’m dizzy. This is super wicked, super wicked. This flying….

S

Well, I took a look, there was no ground, but I also didn’t see…the city’s ground – not even the street. I was standing on something but I didn’t even see what it was. And then all of a sudden, recognized these turbines in my hand and the rainbow. And then…

R

And then you were god!

S

Then I realized… God was too absurd for me and then I thought an angel is now nicer somehow. Because it is really surreal, that doesn’t exist like this.. And I didn’t feel like an angel but I tried to explain, who could be on this level and look down from above…

F

Then I pushed the button and drove up, but I haven’t…but there was no sound… of driving up.

C

But there was another sound?

F

No, no music, no. Because normally there is pressure, well with 200… I mean even if you drive up the Fernsehturm with the elevator, you have to gulp the whole time, gulp gulp gulp. And then you are on top and it opens Bing.

F

Help, help, no, I need to hold onto something. I lay myself down here and then I look down.

F

Oh god!

F

It somehow makes a move, this thing.

F

Oh shit, oh god.

F

Now, I am in such a…

D

Are you flying? Are you flying?

F

And how do I get…? Can I move myself somehow?

F

Towards this building and then again… And sometime you come and that is important and then…
And then you are still here und you feel everything inside of you. And then this… and this..

F

Look, how I shake.

B

This is now neon-green!

R

Well, according to me there should be cameras everywhere and monitor me. If I know that this helps to solve faster murder cases or other crimes. I don’t feel supervised and controlled… Well, at least not when I come in the privacy of my own home.

L

Well, then in private space, now actually we also do it in a save, private space. I hope the data (laughs)… Let’s see how the data will be evaluated, but this is the question now. I mean in which spaces do you try out something like this. Well, I don’t know now if i think it’s good, as you just said, that Google is watching me, while I am using something like that… How this data will be evaluated.

Y

How easily scared am I? What I am afraid of? She is afraid of heights or she is afraid of spiders or how high get her pulse or are you scared of fishes. This all can be evaluated. And one is having a high pulse… I think this is incredible what they can do with it.

L

But does that scare you?

S

Oh god, someone jumped from that. I can’t see anything, I can’t see anything.

S

Should i…

R

Should I help you?

S

Rainbow

S

I always go higher and higher and higher

S

Then down…

S

I can imagine how high I am. Down there is the ballon, which, I think, Yvonne might have seen. Down there are the skyscraper and I am up here. I’m simply god.

M

Did you sneak through the whole game? Or were you rather the bad boy, who killed everyone? And is that an information that will be given to my employer? Or to my potential employer?

E

If you play normal games?

M

Yes!

W

As if something exciting has just happened.

K

And how was it for you that we were here?

W

Of course, it would be… Well, I can easily imagine that it would have been something completely else if you weren’t with me and that if so, I would have… That reality and fiction or rather virtual reality and reality would habe blurred even more and maybe I even would have been scared. I don’t know but it played an important role, also because I knew… I also didn’t see what happen around me. I knew I’m in my living room, I knew roughly the spacing, but I didn’t know when I was walking against something and I would have… At the beginning I didn’t move at all. And I would have… Without you, I would have dealt with this in a completely other way, probably I would have taken the cursor as a blindman’s stick.

W

There you have felt more save with us as if you would have been all alone.

C

I’m totally sweaty or wet from the sea, whatever.

C

I’m totally shaky, that’s for sure.

C

What is going on?

C

I’m just feeling sick.

F

What? Just like, here with your thumb, your index finger, here..

C

Yes.

E

I would never ever dare to go there. And this what I wanted with this… To experience and to overcome it through these virtual worlds what I would never ever dare in real life. And then, well it was awful… Well I didn’t know at which point I screamed here… But somehow it was…

M

Did you crash right?

E

I was… I guess, it was suddenly there, I don’t know anymore if up or down, but it was so so so… really very realistic. As I said, I…I am still…I have enough.

C

It is rather like a dream. It is rather like a dream castle, what you can see. Because in a dream, you also.. the body… You only feel your body and the surface of your body. Depending on if you have a warm or anxious feeling. Your body just isn’t there.

E

There were somehow two feelings. So physically I felt here, well not here but there, but far away in my head, I knew that it is a game. And yes, this game really upset me.

C

Exactly what you have told. I say how I dream and after that you can decide, what you do.

G

Yes, I realized that. My heart quite flutters. So now what?

M

No heartbeat anymore.

E

You’re out.

G

I’m dead.

E

You’re dead.

E

What else was there?

M

The Zombies.

W

The zombies yes! I also won’t think about all of them.

M

The living room gets a completely other meaning.

M

Well, if something flies here across the room, that I can’t see. And that was then like with a medium, that experiences a ghost or something like this.

G

Have you still not arrived?

M

How fast do you fly towards the ground?

E

Wooho, I can regulate as well. I indeed can fly between the houses, fly between the houses. So..

M

Everything alright?

K

That’s us. Everything alright?

E

I just bumped into a house. Now I am…

M

Do you want to get up again?

G

Did you bump?

G

No! Well… There are many houses.

K

Where are you at the moment?

E

I’m down now. Well… ups. What is this?

N

That’s a chair.

E

There are traces everywhere, where I’ve been before.

K

Are you okay?

E

Ahh, this is so beautiful. But indeed I am a little bit tired after the flying.

E

The mountains.

E

Now, I am completely alone in the mountains. I try now to get up, if that works…

K

Should we help you? Or do you want to try it alone?

E

No, no, no…

E

Heyy, this is a helicopter. Probably it is looking for me. I am here.It is also so small.

K

Attention!

E

Now I am sitting on the street, I think on the highway. I’m chasing a car now.

K

Attention!

M

Yes, you don’t hear so well in there.

M

Yes, because it is so loud in there..

M

Caution!

E

It is so much traffic there.

G

You better would have plunged, there it was more calm. In the sea…

PROLOUGE (Fear of Flying)