An Ark for a Pair of Media: Sokurov’s Russian Ark
Sokurov’s Ark is a 21st century vessel, floating on the old fluids of analogous pictures in and of the space of the Hermitage of St. Petersburg – oil, ink and film emulsion.
The digital image of these pictures lives in this Ark, produced by a “never blinking” (Kujundzic) video eye, and a noise reduced stereophonic ear: a dolby digital camera. But: We do not see the digital image itself, we see its copy, in a 35 mm film projection.
The Ark is a versatile vessel. It contains representations and their media, all grouped in biblical pairs: the blind narrator –
