Add to playlist
Ch. 1 Main narrative using modern dancers portraying primitive humans to convey a creation story.
Ch. 2. Birth narrative of pregnant belly, birth and later an infant nursing.
Channels 3 & 4 (not pictured) depict landscapes, surveillance culture, and solar, lunar and galactic imagery (NASA SDO).
SYNOPSIS: INCIDENT ENERGY is a multi-channel video filmed with heat-sensitive Thermal Imaging (infrared/IR) cameras to explore themes of nature and humanity. Thermal imaging details the subtle changes in heating and cooling surface temperatures, revealing the changing light in corporeal and inanimate objects -heat appears white and cold becomes black.
A simple narrative weaves the cyclical nature of energy -from our galaxy to humanity- and the stark beauty of black and white infrared footage reveals the fragility of human existence within a creation drama; while combining the emotional theater of opera with eerie scientific observation. With primal human movement, dance choreographer Jim McGinn and accompanying performers appear as translucent primitive humans, like living alabaster sculptures in a timeless terrestrial realm where bodies possess a simultaneous interiority/exteriority; as their warm veins, cold extremities and breath are all visible (in real time, no special effects). Scenes filmed in nature and in contemporary settings reflect events and emotions of community, love, birth, conflict, decay and death unfold against black snow-covered forests, empty beach landscapes and dense urban crowds, juxtaposed with vast solar, lunar and interstellar (NASA SDO) imagery.
By utilizing Range Phenomenology technology usually associated with military, border, or aerial surveillance, we aim to inspire contemplation by framing the luminous energy of the human body and offering a glimpse into visual worlds that are ever-present yet hidden from our perception. A subtext posited is about the rapid advancement of this invasive technology and our (c)overt acceptance of the electronic villain into our lives. Visualizing changing heat-signatures radiating from the body, one senses the temporal coalescence of ancient stellar energy in the form of living beings.
