in progress

Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done…

… For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or Knower from the Known – 

WB Yeats: from The Winding Stair

As a kind of coda to the three video installation works completed or begun during Covid times, a new piece is evolving. While the world has emerged from a major global health crisis, it seems that difficult times are still ahead, with so many “unprececented” social and environmental challenges to face. This piece ponders the questions: “Where do we go from here?” and “What may guide that forward journey?” We find ourselves in a precarious and confusing place: but an in-between state can be a fertile site to imagine alternative configurations, perhaps visions of a new reality.

Poetic text and psychological theories continue to inform the work, like the Yeats quote above, and T.S. Eliot’s phrase, “These fragments I have shored against my ruins.” Also Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, universal archetypes and stories that echo within us all, and Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas of telepathy, synchronicity, and what he calls “morphic resonance,” characteristic of groups with common experiences or history.

Echoing Vida’s previous works like Portal and Fall/Flow, the emerging project returns to more abstract imagery with video projections on a constructed set that may evoke Celtic labyrinths, triskeles, knots and spirals. The juxtaposition of construction and projection, along with a composed soundtrack, may reference fragile human dwellings or decaying ruins, alongside natural forms and elements. Viewers will be invited to meander through multiple projected pictures, patterns, and sounds, becoming part of a journey of contemplation.

Inspired by workshops at Philip Hoffman’s Film Farm and with visiting artists Emily Pelstring and Richard Reeves at Quickdraw Animation Society, the artist is also exploring the use of several different treatments of 16 mm film – photograms, scratching and painting on film, etc. These modes (along with Vida’s usual toolkit of painted or textual overlays) may become another element within video projections. Painting or text may also be included in the sculptural set.