What A Nation!

On 19 July, Goethe Institut, Lagos hosted the video show on traffic jam and exchange systems in Lagos. Titled Benzin (German word for petrol), the video presentation makes the point that despite Nigeria being the sixth biggest oil producer among members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC and 8th oil exporting nation in the world, petrol is not often available in the country.

In Benzin, Berlin-based video artists, Constance Fischbeck and Daniel Kotter presents Lagos in a visually interesting manner. With its approximately 15 million inhabitants, Lagos is regarded as the prototype of a mega city that creates radical new forms of social and economic interactions and variations of life. The documentary looks at Nigerians at a specific location, at the petrol station, with long queues that resulted in traffic gridlock. Unpretendedly real, the footage presents a typical scene at a Lagos filling station, chaos and all. Here street traders are in abundance, seeking to hawk their wares to those who want to buy petrol. This is quite unlike what happens in many filling stations around the world.

Benzin translates this exchange system’s mode of operation into a multi-channel video-space installation with a comprehensive visual element accompanied with synchronised elements. There were of course interviews with decision makers and citizens, as well as fictional sequences that were filmed with interview partners. Using four cameras simultaneously, Fischbeck and Kotter combine the documentary with the exchange stories, written by Arigbabu Ayodele and shots of Nigerian school children hawking petrol like sweet on the highway. The video artistically portrays Nigeria as the hub of corruption and indecent craving for cheap money.The project shows the economic exchange process involving young Nigerians, who specialise in vandalising pipelines in exchange for petroleum, with a greater percentage of the pipeline vandals paying with their lives. On hand to watch this revealing video show were Nigerian trade unionists, journalists, taxi drivers and politicians. This video installation will be on display in November, 2008 in the House of World Cultures in Berlin.