Notes on "The Golden Seed"


Video choreography:

The problem I set myself when developing the video strip was to maintain a high level of visual tension and ambiguity of form throughout the piece. As the form changes and evolves it should prompt different visual associations in the viewer's mind but never be reduced to a mere body part.

Using concepts from music composition I split the work into a 3-part time structure: introduction of a theme, variation on the theme, theme played in reverse. In each part I try to play with the viewer's emotions by fulfilling and thwarting his/her expectations of how the form will evolve.

See also my working paper on non-narrative dramatic structure for time-based media.


Imagery:

I am fascinated by the symbols that remain powerful for us even as the overlying belief system changes. In the Russian Orthodox church, gold is the symbol of light, immortality and divinity. The egg - and the damp, dark earth - are symbols of fertility and the cycle of birth and death. As I developed this work into an installation piece the visual and symbolic associations between the video and the pre-Christian Eleusian Mysteries - the Demeter and Persephone myth - became stronger. I began to see the video as a "seed" that could be planted into different settings, a video votive to enduring concepts of human cultures.