S A B U L A T I O N

Sound & video work. 30 min © 2010

"He tried thinking of something else. When he closed his eyes, a number of long lines, flowing like sighs, came floating toward him. They were ripples of sand moving over the dunes. The dunes were probably burned onto his retina because he had been gazing steadily at them for some twelve hours. The same sand currents had swallowed up and destroyed flourishing cities and great empires. They called it the "sabulation" of the Roman Empire...."
Excerpt of the English adaptation of the novel 'Woman in the Dunes' by Kobo Abe, 1962. The word Sabulation refers to the ancient Roman city Sabratah, today a deserted ruin by the Mediterranean sea in Libya.

This work consists of sound and video footage of the so-called Singing Sands or Booming Dunes in the deserts of Oman.

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