User:Solarcher

The Earth Is Not At Rest

This is a video. in total it lasts somewhere between 10 and fifteen minutes. there is no sound. It is on a large flatscreen monitor. perhaps 55 inch. throughout there are italicised subtitles. they are generally portentous in tone and a little conversational. It opens with a handheld shot of the moon, out of focus, roaming through dark leaves which dominate the frame. over this, in white text reads "I Sun & Moon". as the video progresses it becomes clear that these are chapter headings. there are 5 sections in total; Sun & Moon, Venus & Mars, Jupiter & Saturn, Uranus & Neptune, and Mercury & Pluto. each chapter ends with a header reading dates and astronomical transits. The majority of the shots are slow, dark tracking shots of spaces in a park. It appears to be around dusk. the figures of 2 caryatids recur sporadically throughout. In chapter 2 after a long slow out of focus shot which resolves to be the back of a head with red hair surrounded by a nimbus of brightly lit greenery, a woman with short red hair dressed in jogging clothes stretches in poses similar to those of the statues. the shots of generally depopulated, except for a child on a bike who cycles across in section 4 and a group of men dressed in white, in the middle distance and out of focus. playing boules. The final chapter ends with a handheld shot attempting to follow a swiftly moving flying object among dark leaves and with a shallow depth of field, then cuts to the opening shot of the moon.

Crust

this also is a video. It opens with a road. at high speed and shaky and through strong dappled light, it is summer in the countryside. there is a slightly syncopated rhythmic pulse and a smear or imperfection on the lens. As the camera approaches a village and slows down a female computer voice begins to speak. the screen cuts to black. the camera searches among pale leafy shapes in the dark. the narrator recounts a story about a deep sea experimental mission to drill to the core of the earth. among all the creatures which persist around volcanic vents the mission goes wrong and something living escapes from beneath the crust. throughout, the percussive sounds comes and goes, relative to the presence of drilling in the narrative. the pale leaves cut to a roaming shot dominated by red of some ambiguously animal or plant looking things. the screen flashes and phases through colours in time with the percussion. around 2 two thirds of the way through the shot cuts to a sea at sunset. the horizon bisects the screen. the sea is moving in slow motion. it continues to pulse colours in time. the narration continues and describes its becoming aware as the mind of the drilling submarine and continues to describe the rising awareness of the world of objects now autonomous and carrying out their functions without the input of humans. cut to black and end.

Grendel.

A video displayed on a 21 inch sony PMV Display Monitor on a table. There are Headphones. fading in from black it opens with a walk through a forest, the colours of the shot are heavily hued to purple and green and is quite dark. It smears and shakes and is generally dark and indistinct. there is the sound of a stream. a narrators voice enters. it sounds a little ambiguous. it may or may not be apparent that it is a german accented computer voice. many of the words dont quite parse sensibly. It addresses the viewer directly and describes an incomplete journey undertaken. without compass or map "you" have wandered off into the night. its now dawn. it brings up astral projections, the broken spectre, and describes being a little disorientated and the surroundings. then cuts to many long shots of steam rising off a forest ringed lake. in one shot, on the opposite side of the lake a figure with a dog appears and walks down to the water.

the narrator continues, talking about lists of water dwelling fairy tale creatures and about changelings and alternative life processes/forms. then goes on to describe abiogenesis, the process of living matter arising from non-living, and a lake outside L.A. which has been made so poisonous that only by restructuring its DNA can anything survive there. NASA may or may not have found an organism which appears to have managed this.

throughout this there are static shots of mist rising from and slowly flowing above the tree ringed lake. each lasts between 30 seconds and a minute. the final two shots show, in centre frame a wooden hut on the bank. no door or window is apparent. the mist continues to flow. the first shot cuts when the narration ends and it cuts to a closer shot of the same hut from the same angle, just above centre. the mist flows rapidly. there is not only the sound of trickling water, and ambient birdsong and the sounds of the waking forest. and occasional grunts and throat clearing off camera. This contiues silently for about 40 seconds then fades to black.