WHOSE BLOOD-RED COLOUR MAKES MY FLESH STILL CREEP

from: cat. Nederland 4 / the Dutch art video, Delft 1988

Bulicame  The point of departure is the seventh circle of Dante's Infer­no, where, on a red-hot plain, in a seething ri­ver of blood and in a scorched and thorny forest, squa­nde­rers and bullies undergo their pu­nish­ment.  The three areas are con­nected with each other by means of a red stream, for which the Itali­an sulpher spring Buli­came served as the model: Silent we came to where spurts forth from deep / within the woodland a small rivu­let, / whose blood-red colour makes my flesh still creep. / As from the Bulicame finds outlet (Canto XIV v 76-81).
Dante created his Inferno on the basis of an existing landscape near the Italian resort of Viterbo, where the hot spring emerges.  A fasci­na­ting location, in which he punished historical as well as contempo­rary figures. The creator of this piece of work also wished to create a place where, by means of a serie­s of short images, the evil-doers and wasters of our time are put in their place.  Dicta­tors, ruiners of the environ­ment, fanatics, terro­rists and crimi­nals all await their turn.  The tele­visi­on images which are used were recor­ded in 1987 and consist partly of crimi­nals from the Second World War and the inferno which they brou­ght about.  But that parti­cular hell is not the central theme here.  Per­haps it has more to do with Dante's words from Canto XXVI: Think of your breed: nature did not intend / mankind to live as brutes, but to pursue / virtue and know­ledge to the very end.
The main theme of Bulicame V is the bub­bling spring it­self, deluged by images of people the artist encounte­red in the pools of the Bulica­me and who in a strange way are insepa­rably bound to the place.

Bulicame, configuration tape 1988, videostill