LANYC Windmill

The Jahresgabe is an edited still from the eponymous video and surround installation LANYC by Hans Diernberger & Will Saunders, which was on view this year at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof. LANYC was created on a four-day train journey between Los Angeles and New York City, where the camera takes the perspective of a roving gaze out the window. The footage overlaps, creating the perception of a round trip that neither begins nor ends in either city. The subsequent color grading of the footage lends a surreal, dreamlike mood to the film, which is further enhanced by the soundtrack. The rhythmic rattling of the wheels on the rails and the occasional honking of the train’s horn are interrupted occasionally by fragments of dialogue, without any coherent narrative emerging from them. Harmonica sounds tie everything together in a hypnotic journey through the trans-American landscape, where the vastness of the Midwest merges with the large, densely built cities of both coasts. LANYC portrays a landscape of longing associated with nostalgic promises of freedom, reveling in the feeling of being in between without having to arrive.