Still Alive / Plant Date (2019)
The two video works were made in collaboration with Freia DeWaal.
As we turn towards the ordinary, we can meditate on what happens when nothing happens. In these two works, everyday domestic subjects—two houseplants and fruit—are animated through various filmic methods, prompting a self-reflective interrogation of human language.
Plant Date and Still Alive are two single channel videos that abstractly delve into the realm of human sexuality and human communication. Implicitly and explicitly, they both interpret the ways in which language operates sensorially. They also serve as formal experiments into the sensuous relationship between elements of color, light, sound and text. In conjunction with one another, they allude to the fertility and decay of the body; a vibrant memento mori brought to life through movement.
Still Alive is a playful reinterpretation of 17th century still life painting, which often featured fruit as meaningful signifiers of fertility and life. However, human hands take center stage in this still life, as the agents of communication. Conversely, Plant Date presents a comically absurdist encounter between two houseplants, using sound and text to ponder on notions of authorship and agency within language. While Still Alive explores the absence of spoken or written human language, Plant Date delves into the significations, or presence, of a speaker. However, as both films progress, their very structure is challenged. The plants' anthropomorphized conversation about a date is constantly disrupted by montaging slippages in semiotics; coffee becomes coffin, knife becomes kin. Dynamic changes in touch between two pairs of human hands intensify to reframe communication as a sensorial act.
Plant Date and Still Alive are two single channel videos that abstractly delve into the realm of human sexuality and human communication. Implicitly and explicitly, they both interpret the ways in which language operates sensorially. They also serve as formal experiments into the sensuous relationship between elements of color, light, sound and text. In conjunction with one another, they allude to the fertility and decay of the body; a vibrant memento mori brought to life through movement.
Still Alive is a playful reinterpretation of 17th century still life painting, which often featured fruit as meaningful signifiers of fertility and life. However, human hands take center stage in this still life, as the agents of communication. Conversely, Plant Date presents a comically absurdist encounter between two houseplants, using sound and text to ponder on notions of authorship and agency within language. While Still Alive explores the absence of spoken or written human language, Plant Date delves into the significations, or presence, of a speaker. However, as both films progress, their very structure is challenged. The plants' anthropomorphized conversation about a date is constantly disrupted by montaging slippages in semiotics; coffee becomes coffin, knife becomes kin. Dynamic changes in touch between two pairs of human hands intensify to reframe communication as a sensorial act.
Plant Date (2019), Video (color, sound, 4 mins 6 sec)
Still Alive (2019), Video (color, sound, 3 mins 10 sec)