(photo: Farming in Nevada, credit: Michael Eckblad)
In my video work I like to flirt with ambiguity. My audience members frequently mention that they were infinitely intrigued, but don’t really know why — and surely cannot verbalize their intrigue. I really like that. If my explorations in video could easily be put into words, I would probably have been a writer.
From my experience, a good percentage of the U.S. population has a problem with conceptually and narratively oblique videos. In our life and entertainment (especially in our entertainment) we are used to just being handed what we want — usually in a prepackaged form, wrapped up like a piece of candy. If we don’t get it, we just move on. I am as guilty of this as the next person; I think it’s partially how our brains biologically work, and partially our cultural conditioning.
So, I present you with a video; instigated and inspired by my close friend Gabriel Darling. One day, right as she was about to move far away, Gabriel had the idea to run around in a bamboo forest while I filmed her. It was from a time in Portland I will remember fondly: the days when anything, at anytime, was possible.
This video could go on and on, staying the same but never repeating itself. In that way it isn’t really a loop though formally that is how the technology works. In reality, this video is just a moment. I can’t really say where the girl is running to, or what she is running from. All that matters is that she is free.
“Here and There”
(video by Jason Bahling, music by American Analog Set)
