User:Shannon/What, How, Why

“Sweet little flower,” is a short video that begins with a flower in the sun, bobbing with the breeze. A hand enters the frame and touches the bright flower slowly in circular motions, gently entering and massaging the center/pistil of the flower and then exits the frame. In other shots the hand is seen touching other flowers, massaging, nudging hanging petals off and fondling the pistil, and the video ends with a violent gesture ripping petals off of a widely splayed pink flower. There are background sounds of people chatting cheerily, oblivious to these violations. The video was made on impulse during a visit to a public garden. It was shot on my phone in short clips, and pieced together with no other editing. I saw the flowers and wanted to touch their delicate petals, they were so beautiful and soft and fragrant. I also wanted to crush them and rip them and violate them - do things that I shouldn’t do to them. They yielded so easily. I related to the flowers - at the time I felt similarly defenseless and taken advantage of. I wanted to control and exploit these flowers, in a sense reenacting what I had felt, while taking the position of power. The piece also explores the power dynamics inherent in the relationship between humans and the natural environment - the way humans attempt to exert control over a so-called ‘defenseless’ environs.

“Next to but not touching” is a video beginning with shots following a flock of birds in NYC, flying high in the sky, small and black and moving like an abstract object. Their movements swirl and shift, and the white underside of their wings reflect back glittering light. The mass morphs, expanding and contracting as some birds split off and others join. A single bird can be heard leading with a long clear call through the swirls. At times the flock is foreboding, darkening the sky. The birds perch on the same buildings and lamp posts at different times of day and with different movements. Seated in trees before dusk, they chatter and call, filling up several trees with fluttering and commotion. Later the video gets closer, following two pigeons as they strut across parallel beams of a subway station. They gaze over the ledge and the first bird turns and flicks its tail, dropping a shit down into the street. The other follows suit. At one point the camera confronts the birds, walking into the flock. They fly towards the camera in a hostile mass. The video ends back in a distant point of view, admiring the birds through a car window as they fly in formation at the same pace, and as they drift away like specks or stars floating in the sky. The piece was shot over two years of the birds encountered on my commute to my 9-5 job almost everyday. I wanted to direct my attention to the natural world within the urban environment, as a way to counter human “species loneliness”, or the melancholy alienation of humans from other living beings. Once I began paying attention to the birds I became interested in the way their sophisticated daily commutes mirrored my own - the way they travel as a mass each day, aware of those around but never colliding. From a distance their movements as a group are glittering and sublime, yet up close they each have their own personalities and their own shit. It struck me that their lives were so rich and dynamic, and existed right alongside, parallel to my own, yet they had eluded my attention until now.