Feral Gardens
February 20, 2015 4:27 PM Subscribe
Danny Cooke’s Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl summons a lost history of familiar and alien dreams. The drone-mounted camera glides deliberately through the spaces within and above the empty city. The soundtrack is haunting, or “haunting.” We think of drones moving relentlessly forward: into the hidden terrain of surveillance, into the kill zone, into the future. Yet many of the shots point the lens in reverse, effectively pulling back to show first a figure and only then its surroundings. A diving platform with paint peeled away, then the empty pool. A circular emblem, large and sculptural, then the great apartment block on whose roof it sits, visible for miles. Not all shots follow this rule, and not all are taken by drone, but this is the general approach of Danny Cooke’s Postcards From Pripyat, Chernobyl, a three-minute video from last year. It’s quite beautiful.
It was made to accompany Chernobyl: The Catastrophe That Never Ended, a network show about the afterlife of the 1986 nuclear plant meltdown. The report itself feels like a half-concealed return to Cold War intimations: terrible things happened here once, we are reminded; this may still be the case. That the radioactive exclusion zone is once again in Ukraine rather than the Soviet Union only directs us to the current war and rumors of war arriving ambiguously from the East.
Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl (Drone Footage)
It was made to accompany Chernobyl: The Catastrophe That Never Ended, a network show about the afterlife of the 1986 nuclear plant meltdown. The report itself feels like a half-concealed return to Cold War intimations: terrible things happened here once, we are reminded; this may still be the case. That the radioactive exclusion zone is once again in Ukraine rather than the Soviet Union only directs us to the current war and rumors of war arriving ambiguously from the East.
Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl (Drone Footage)
The Zone wants to be respected. Otherwise it will punish.
posted by standardasparagus at 4:33 PM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by standardasparagus at 4:33 PM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Good post. I prefered it without the music.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:52 PM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Wolfdog at 4:52 PM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Good post. I prefered it without the music.
Yes; the bluesiness of the music is a tad distracting. Replace that with, say, Godspeed You! Black Emperor or someone, and it'd work a lot better.
posted by acb at 4:57 PM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes; the bluesiness of the music is a tad distracting. Replace that with, say, Godspeed You! Black Emperor or someone, and it'd work a lot better.
posted by acb at 4:57 PM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Quadcopter huh.
I'm sure 20-ish years of wind and rain have settled things down, but I'd still be (probably needlessly) concerned about anything liable to kick up dust in Pripyat. Cesium-137 sticks around.
posted by figurant at 5:18 PM on February 20, 2015
I'm sure 20-ish years of wind and rain have settled things down, but I'd still be (probably needlessly) concerned about anything liable to kick up dust in Pripyat. Cesium-137 sticks around.
posted by figurant at 5:18 PM on February 20, 2015
Of the various combinations I tried (quite a few) I think I liked this alternate soundtrack best, somewhat surprisingly.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:23 PM on February 20, 2015
posted by Wolfdog at 5:23 PM on February 20, 2015
Of the various combinations I tried (quite a few) I think I liked this alternate soundtrack best, somewhat surprisingly.
Great idea. This, perhaps, as an alternate.
posted by standardasparagus at 5:28 PM on February 20, 2015
Great idea. This, perhaps, as an alternate.
posted by standardasparagus at 5:28 PM on February 20, 2015
I watched this (with a Tycho album for music) flashing back to Call of Duty MW wishing I could play this one too. Kind of a too comfortable way of viewing it. It is still a beautiful video though, no helping that.
posted by yoHighness at 5:29 AM on February 21, 2015
posted by yoHighness at 5:29 AM on February 21, 2015
I'm sure 20-ish years of wind and rain have settled things down, but I'd still be (probably needlessly) concerned about anything liable to kick up dust in Pripyat. Cesium-137 sticks around.
My understanding is that most of the Zone of Alienation (Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС) is down to about 1 μSv per hour, which is 1/1000th the legal annual occupational dose in the United States. So it's not particularly dangerous, but also not particularly safe.
posted by thegears at 4:07 PM on February 21, 2015
My understanding is that most of the Zone of Alienation (Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС) is down to about 1 μSv per hour, which is 1/1000th the legal annual occupational dose in the United States. So it's not particularly dangerous, but also not particularly safe.
posted by thegears at 4:07 PM on February 21, 2015
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posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:28 PM on February 20, 2015 [3 favorites]