CHRISTOPH KELLER Christoph Keller, Introduction | Page 14

STORNI MORTI, 2018
Storni Morti, 2018
Single channel digital video (color, sound)
Duration: 15 minutes
Edition of 4
(CK 266)
On January 30, 2018 hundreds of dead starlings fell from the sky, simultaneously in different parts of
the city of Rome. Christoph Keller’s video takes this event as point of departure: While accidentally
locked at night in the Campo Verano cemetery, the artist filmed the dramatic flight pattern of
thousands of starlings at dusk. The footage is interspersed with the interview of Francesca Manzia,
a conservationist at LIPU (Wildlife Recovery Center). The presence of the artist is never felt, neither
when filming the birds’ hectic flying, nor when recording Manzia, thus echoing the conservationist’s
argument that humans should not intervene with bird’s ecosystem.
Christoph Keller’s work constitutes an examination of the history of science and of the way in which
knowledge is gathered and organized. Long-term projects concern, for instance, anthropology (in
particular the history of Western European engagement with the Amazon region), fringe science and
parapsychology.
Keller continuously addresses how the organization of knowledge influences our thinking, which
results in the sometimes arbitrary distinctions between what is and what is not considered science.
His practice includes large-scale sculptural interventions, photography, film, exhibition-making, and
psychological experiments, which he documents in various media.
14