The Price of Oil

Video/Animation | 2019

The Price of Oil was written by the American composer Frederic Rzewski in 1980 and was inspired by a contemporary disaster in which the "Alexander Kielland," a floating platform used to house oil-drilling workers in the North Sea, capsized, killing 139 people. The piece consists of an interplay between two characters: an oil dealer in the Rotterdam spot market and a worker/survivor of the disaster. The two characters never meet, but both, in the composer’s words, “make up complementary parts of a superstructure which governs their individual behavior, and whose functioning, in turn, depends upon their active presence.”

The video was made using an experimental process that involved assembling and incorporating eight thousand stills, along with a combination of stop-motion techniques and computer programming. Historical images were sourced from various old newspapers and magazines and reworked to bear reference to natural disasters, wars, political scandals, death tolls, and murders that, in some direct or indirect ways, suggest a link to the issues of oil and their aftermath.

This animation, a collaborative effort between Mani Mehrvarz and Maryam Muliaee, utilizes over 8,000 stop-motion frames to highlight the composition's commentary on labor and environmental justice. It serves as an archival art practice that draws attention to how artists, through their experimentation with the archive and mobilization of archival materials, can challenge the established narrative of history and reality.