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SYNPOSIS
Emblemata is a story of Finnish folklore of the Kalavela. Motorcycle boardtrack racing as a aesthetic medium in which to narrate the tales of the Kalevala. As the folklore lends itself well to interpretation, I intend to relate the ebb and flow of electricity, nature and mankind through the use and ideologies professed by the antiqued technologies of the first industrial revolution. The abstraction of speed, power and magnetism both physical and mental are the emblematic means to an end of this film project.
HISTORY
Board track racing was a type of racing where the track surface was made of long wooden boards. The tracks were created with 2x4 boards. Tracks were banked up to 50 degrees in the turns. Around a half dozen tracks up to two miles long were opened by 1915. The board track popped up because of the ease to construction coupled with cheap labor and the low cost of lumber. Both super-charged cars and motorcycles raced on board tracks. Motorcycles tore down straight-aways at 120 mph while carpenters patched the tracks from beneath. Numerous deaths from crash injuries lead to the demise of the board tracks and by the early 1920’s all boardtracking was outlawed.