Cong Feng’s STRATUM2: THE ASTHENOSPHERE takes the form of film essay trying to explore physical and psychological time-space relationships through the lens of film and contemporary media materials. The asthenosphere is a geological term, referring to stratum that contains fluid substances which constantly transform and circulate back to the surface.

 

The director uses the asthenosphere as an analogy to indicate the collapse of life and space and the reactivation of the history. Watching common people’s interactions with the ruins and the surroundings, along with the seemingly monotonous narration, lead us to reflect how landscape and spectacles influence and construct human, modern life, and our past and future.

 

Tracing back to when film was invented, the director intends to examine camera lens and its relationships with time and space. Using footages taken from the internet and achieved films as sources, the film itself becomes an “echo film” to explore and connect with the history, but further suggest image has an enormous power to preserve “now” and reveal certain truth that has long been forgotten.