Immortalities is a diptych, a two-screen video that can be shown on a projector or a monitor (I did both in the studio) about the connection between the eternal nature of art and the transformative workings of nature. I shot part of it in Pere laChaise, where my camera sought out the graves and monuments of artists, some of them well attended and some overgrown and derelict, but still there. The second part I shot in Epping Forest, in early summer, when the golden light filtered through the leaves and the world looked new.
The same principle I used applies to all of my artist films: that of the always-carried immediate and direct camera. In this case I used DV – I like the endless supply of cheap video tape, the mechanism of the tape carrier, and its sturdy reliability.
The guiding principle in the film is What Whitman’s poetry; although I used a quote from that poem in Leaves of Grass titled To Think of Time, pretty much all of Leaves of Grass is the guiding principle of the work, and of many works …
"I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it;
And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life and materials are altogether for it!"
Immortalities is part of a series of very short works inspired and framed by literature.