Janis Klimanovs Description

"Slothful dreams"

WHAT?

Sloth is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work. It is often regarded as mere laziness, but actually can be more accurately translated as apathy. Apathetic person do not care about doing their duties that are supposed to be done. (http://www.wikipedia.org)

"Slothful dreams" is a visualization of a dream what reflects to the sloth sin. A tired man with a big bushy beard stands in the bathroom and looks at himself in a mirror. He feels ugly. He wants to shave the beard but he is too shiftless and slothful to do it. He takes off his shirt and suddenly instead of taking a razor he thinks of trying to shave the beard off with his nails and finger tips. In the same moment he is realizing that the finger tips are becoming raiser blade sharp as well as the nails.

He puts them towards his face and it works. He can do everything starting with cutting his bush on chin, trimming cheeks and finishing with the mustache in final. In a certain point when the job is almost done he becomes more and more passionate about the possibility to get rid of the beard. He admires him self, touches his freshly shaved cheeks and all around the face, almost forgetting about the raiser sharp nails and finger tips. He starts to touch his head. He freezes in front of the mirror from a shocking thought that he has almost shaved off all his hair.

In the same moment in a different space he awakes from a dream. He understands that his beard and also the hair is still there and he had a bad dream. And still he needs to shave.

HOW?

"Slothful dreams" is a one minute video sequence that has been made of around one and a half thousand photographs captured with a digital photo camera. Photographs are shot in a small bathroom, in low light conditions. Frames are captured in a row, one after another by creating a stop motion sequence. Combination of all necessary frames for the outcome result were selected in the editing part. Photos are converted to black and white because color is not important for the story.

WHY?

"Slothful dreams" was created in an experimental process as a playful visualization about a recent dream. The concept is not based on anything else just the dream it self. In a certain point of the process the idea developed in another stage from a photo story to a short moving image sequence. The story became more clear and in the same way more surreal with a dash of humor. The dream translated it self during the making process and the short storyline established towards laziness and unreal wishes theme. One of the Seven Deadly Sins from The Bible was an entrance examination assignment theme for visual communication of lens based media program in Piet Zwart Institute. This visualization of the dream reflects to the slothful sin about avoidance of physical work.