Tekla Aslanishvili
(Tbilisi, 1988)Scenes from Trial and Error, 2020
AVCHD digital film, color, sound, 30´ Ed. 5 + 2 AP
The seemingly endless tests of developing a futuristic smart city and deep sea port reshape a small fishing village of Anaklia on the shores of the Black Sea in west Georgia. The documentary film investigates the material and social conditions that are produced as a result of these ambitious infrastructural investments, aimed at transforming the country into a trade corridor for the speculative New Silk Road project.
By exploring the awkward infrastructural landscapes and relating architectural frictions that have emerged over the last decade in Anaklia, the film observes how the planning strategies and operational logics of large scale infrastructural investments and even mistakes, which the fantasies of technologically managed smooth urban life inevitably contain, are being manifested in a design of peripheral large-scale geoengineering projects.
Through artistic-scientific collaborations with international researchers, film partially positions itself at a distance from the actual events and speculates about the possible scenarios of development from a future perspective.
Still from Scenes from Trial and Error