1964, Stockholm. Lives in Stockholm.

For Ola Pehrson’s remake of the documentary Hunt for the Unabomber, he selected a disassembled series of stills and animations from the original and then modelled them in clay, junk, thread and polystyrene. These handmade recreations were put back together and filmed to form a new documentary, just slightly less connected to reality than the original. Some of the representations, in both the original version and in Pehrson’s remake, are highly subjective visual statements, that carry little visible resemblance to the original subjects. In contrast, other moments present minutely precise copies of a house, or a photograph of a relevant person.
Pehrson has taken an active interest in every single detail of the film, and the materials used for restaging arbitrary illustrations of literal events. A specific aeroplane, for instance, becomes any aeroplane, since it is impossible to show the actual aeroplane from the earlier event. Another abstraction found in the original documentary is the lack of physical participation by the protagonist’s brother, instead his inclusion is represented by a photograph, possibly taken of him on holiday in Mexico. In Pehrson’s reconstruction, a remake of this image merely pushes the pretence of the brother’s involvement one step further. Hunt for the Unabomber, as shown at the Bilsar Building, consists of 120 objects and a DVD. Yet the number of objects keeps rising, because as Pehrson states, ‘the reality of the quantity and form of models required for this remake remains elusive and utopian’.

November Paynter

www.olapehrson.com

BİLSAR BUILDING