Trauma and Transformation

Multiple videos at once

Every moment in someone’s life is a result of the thousands of moments leading up to it. I believe that people are not predisposed to one way of thinking or acting, but rather are molded by their experiences, good and bad. My video is a celebration and recognition of those experiences that combine to create a sense of “self.” This is achieved through the multiple vignettes which abstract specific formative actions or memories in my own life. I take a vivid memory and make it harsh and cold, boiled down to its simplest component. Each vignette is filmed twice, once in a very distressed emotion, and once more calm, as this helps to show the changing feelings toward memories as one matures. For example, one memory is pouring water on myself while holding a light within the video, but this correlates to a real of experience of depression while staring at a light near a river. But, that memory of staring at the light is foundational to my understanding of myself as a person, and so there is a positive outlook on that sad memory. All of this is backdropped by a foggy lighted box, the formation of thoughts. Throughout the video, as the viewer explores these different behaviors and memories, my acting provides a guide to the emotions tied to them. These emotions are fickle, and can vary or change depending on how I feel about the memory. At one point, the emotion may be intense distress, at another, joy. That is the primary challenge here: boil those feelings down to something simple.

Toward the end of the video, I take control of my own thoughts. I don’t allow myself to be defined by only the darkest and harshest of memories. I take the trauma, and transform it, as I always done through art, into something more useful. This has been a frequent mental exercise of mine over the past few months since beginning meditation. With a refreshed outlook on the world, darkness is still attractive artistically, but that darkness comes from a transformative place, rather than a translational.

With so many videos on screen at the same time, editing has been of utmost importance to direct the focus of the audience. Primarily, decisions had to be made around opacity, scale, and movement. Brighter videos, larger videos, and more active videos are going to attract attention to themselves inherently, and so if I want to move attention somewhere else, I have to make videos fade out or blend into the background. This proved to be a challenge, but one that I think ultimately was successful.