Still from Big Tech Blues (Elisabeth Brun, 2024)
"Big Tech Blues" and "On Air" treat in different ways people's (and places') relationships to technology - how technology can both bind us together and make us vulnerable. When the films are shown together, questions and a conversation also arise in the space between the films.
Filmmakers Astrid Ardagh (via video link) and Elisabeth Brun, as well as cinematographer Tor Edvin Eliassen, are in conversation with Katja Eyde Jacobsen, director of Kabelvåg School of Moving Images, after the film screenings.
On Air (2024) is a poetic and exploratory short documentary that takes you on a journey through the vast landscapes of Northern Norway, from the amateur radio club in Tromsø tothe satellite station on Svalbard. The film centres around a Russian cyberattack that struck Northern Europe in February 2022 and examines how the amateur radio community can be of use in a society entirely dependent on the internet and advanced satellite technology.
The film’s main characters are Ishavsringen, a group of amateur radio operators connected by their past as telegraphers on Hopen and Bjørnøya. In retirement, they have maintained daily contact via radio and Morse code for over 20 years. It may seem that the radio amateurs are clinging to the past, but in today’s climate, with threats of war, extreme weather, and solar storms, they might actually be maintaining a lifeline for the future.
Idea and direction: Astrid Ardagh
Producer: Eilif Bremer Landsend & Astrid Ardagh
Cinematographer: Tor Edvin Eliassen
Editor: Feline Hjermind & Astrid Ardagh
Composer and sound design: Andreas Tegnander
Stills photographer & Assistant: Sigrid Erdal
Astrid Ardagh is an artist and filmmaker from Engeløya in Steigen, with a Bachelor in Moving Image from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Her transgressive films and socially engaged art projects foster interaction and evoke sensory exploration. With a poetic visual language, her work weaves connections between community, nature, and technological vulnerability in an increasingly urbanised and individualistic world. Astrid's short films have been shown at acclaimed festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand and the Short Film Festival in Grimstad, in addition to galleries and art museums, such as Kristiansand Kunsthall and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Big Tech Blues (2024) is a poetic film essay about life in rural Northern Norway in the age of tech giants, told from a sensory and personal perspective. The point of departure is the filmmaker’s childhood school in the small village of Strengelvåg, which was purchased by Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink program—an event that sparked reflections on what is at stake as rapidly evolving digital technologies infiltrate every aspect of human life.
The film weaves together a personal narrative of SpaceX’s intervention in the filmmaker’s hometown with existential reflections on belonging, freedom, nostalgia, and progress. It explores dilemmas of place, digital technology, and embodied experience. In collaboration with photographer Eivind H. Natvig, the film investigates questions of visuality and perspective—who is looking, and from where? And then there is the sensory experience of sound: the hum of digital technology, the laughter of children, and the elements of weather and nature. What is the sound of a vibrant place?
By interlacing personal anecdotes with broader reflections, the film offers an insider’s view of the digital industry’s subtle encroachment into rural areas of Northern Norway, and beyond. It examines the complex relationships people form with their surroundings, highlighting the “double bind” of digital technology as well as the importance of embodied experience for memory and attachment.
Credits:
Written, produced, and directed by Elisabeth Brun
Director of photography and co-producer: Eivind H. Natvig
Music: Alexander Rishaug
Post-production: Truels Zeiner-Henriksen
VFX: Peder Opland / SCREAM Media
Financed by Arctic Film (Kalle Løchen and Rachel Andersen Gomez), Fritt Ord, and the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI)
Age limit: 15 years