The Ister

An ambitious philosophical video essay , 'The Ister' takes its cue from Martin Heidegger's 1942 lectures on the poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Specifically, it's the latter's poem 'The Ister', musing on the river Danube, that exercises the controversial German thinker and provides the conceptual and visual framework for Barison and Ross' own meditation on his challenging philosophy. Journeying from the river's mouth to Germany, the film incorporates the reflections of key contemporary theoristsn on the changing nature of European civilisation and its conflicts, the role of technology and the character of philosophy itself. The result is a singular one, creating a layered and rigorous meditation on place and ethics that is strangely affirming.