The Birth of Medusa

Three stills from "The Birth of Medusa," By me in 2007, Newfoundland

After a mini screening last night, I realized that the more out of control my video footage is, the more they are appreciated. Take this one for example, where thousands of jellyfish are slammed through a channel, it was impossible to control anything with the tide being forced through a canyon like space. Timing was everything. I watched this area of the sea for three days before trying to film it. It still was not enough study. The first camera bounced and broke when a wave double backed just a second after the tossed camera left my hands. It was as if the wave just changed its mind. The second back up camera got sucked into an underwater crevice in the process of making this footage, a dangerous rock face climb between surges and frantic tug on the line freed it from the sea cavern, but within an hour it too was broken. One of those cameras became the reworked camera that I am now using to make a piece about dance, so all was not, and never is completely lost. What was gained was this piece of footage. The jellies become my signature diffusion material. Soft and luminous. Beautiful and seemingly fragile, but in the end they survived while I was down 2 cameras. I realized that that which appears fragile is actually the most resilient.

The Vertical Migration

It is the largest migration on earth happening every day while we sleep. These creatures, beautiful in their transparency swim thousands of feet from the ocean's depth to feed. It is called the Vertical Migration. They are male and female, with wings and horns, deep and shallow sea dwellers which possess a grace that I never will. This creature, the size of my pinkie finger is just big enough to hold all of my metaphors.

I nicknamed this one Herbie, the hermaphroditic Sea Angel of the Arctic. They are special in more ways than I can name. It navigates its way upward through the polar seas with what appears to be a wound in the center of its chest. Upon closer observation you realize that the Sea Angel navigates the gauntlet of predators with its heart exposed, like a signal flare within. Navigating the earth with nothing to hide.



Opening scene from yet to be titled video by Anna Peach, filmed in Newfoundland, Canada, June 2007.

Tide pool videos

Tide pool video stills, Newfoundland, Canada, 2007 by Anna P.
This is one of the calm little videos that caught my eye in the last days. The idea was simple: use the diffusion created by the temperature changes between sun warmed surface and the melted icebergs.

Rethinking Newfoundland

It is the second day that I sit at the computer trying my best to compile Newfoundland video. I watch the sky knowing darn well that if starts raining, as it looks like it will, I will drop it in a split second so to make a new video. It is nothing new to report that I have absolutely no relationship with editing. I slowly build knowledge in the area, but feeling no connection to it as well as being trapped indoors seems to build resentment. I want to get rained on, wind burnt, sunburned with new footage in hand rather than being pale and comfortable in the editors chair.

I have been reviewing footage that I never really had time to look at. Amazing surprises were there. I particularly like the video where I stumble upon the plankton bloom. Tight, fractured scenes that were trying to decipher what it was that I was seeing. First thinking it was a lens flare, then realizing it was life. A living flowing permeable red carpet of life. Keep in mind too that I was shooting remote, up on the rocks keeping one eye on the always angry sea, and the other eye on the glare on the screen. I was three feet from being swept in. Three feet from death at all times. I took every video as if it was my last, considering that the pull dropped the camera to the bottom and held it there hovering like a yellow warning to myself, I never took anything for granted. Those entire two weeks of the bloom filming were very dangerous. One day I watched the sea for an entire hour before going to its edge. For hyperactive me, sitting with a mug of coffee, all geared up ready to roll and not filming was hard. I paced back and forth, watched the sky turn over seven times, while the sea just looked very unpredictable. I am not going to pretend that I was able to frame much of that time. The sea was filming, I was trying to keep one camera in, one camera and myself out of the sea.

I Made 115 or so-20min videos during that artist residency left an amazing collection that can appear daunting at times. The great thing is that so much of it really footage that I love. There are redundant segments, but really about anyone you grab is worth a look. The exception being the interviews of me looking very wind burnt (see me casting a boat in seaweed above) in Carhart bibs and lug boots trying to explain why I am launching a camera off the slipway, over the cliff, through the blowhole or shoving the camera under the ice. My words say nothing. I rattle on in vain with eyes on the waves. The images say everything.

Exerpt from Travel Log Newfoundland,
June 1, 2007
"Dipped to freezing, so not a great time to dry seaweed. If I get them all cleaned and dry, it will simply be a matter of assembly. (Waterhorse project casting the boat in seaweed) This shoreline seaweed turns purple black when dry. It is the most accessable variety-able to pluck great quanities off the rocks by the boat launch. Seaweed looses a bit of itself when the sea water is taken away. So...hike to the iceberg or stay here warm and working...The wind cut and the sea calmed, so I should check to see if it(iceberg) is still there. I'll have a walk toward town and have a look along the coast."
June 2, 2007
"Nope, It was gone. The iceberg gone and another dead seal washed in...the seal looked peaceful in death. Silver dapled with freckles. Still think I should have been a wildlife tracker or something. Seem to have an eye for it. Problem of late seems to be that all of the creatures besides the neighbor dogs, the crows or any multi celled creatures above ocean diatoms I am only finding after they are dead. Not a lot of "tracking" involved. I returned back to the cabin to bake a cake, then got back onto the rocks to turn over all the seaweed to dry the other side before dusk. Think the neighbors smelled the cake, as they seem to be circling about on ATV's zooming along the kitchen wall"

Feed- the video series

With the final day of DiVA being Sunday, I have decided to lay low tonight and recoup with the videos of my own design before seeing the blitz of other artist's works. I realized that feeding is a core theme fit for a quad of videos set in three locations. Feed-Eel, features Moray's in Hawaiian waters, Feed-Fish also in Hawaii, Feed-Swan set under lake Zurich, Switzerland, and Feed-Crow series in Newfoundland, Canada.

In the above featured stills from Feed-Eel, I floated a subway submarine sandwich across a lagoon in Hawaii and filmed the ensuing attack in the minutes that followed. Filmed in two feet of water...I pretty much had the ocean to myself after showing the video to a few on the beach. Hey, whatever works.

Northern Lights Below the Sea

underwater video Stills from my plankton pursuits in NFLD

It is really hard to try to explain why I can be captivated with the bottom end of the food chain. I have done my best to focus on life in the Grand Banks, and hope my artwork can illuminate some issues for a better future there. The bottom of the food chain is our future as well. It is hard to imagine that all of the red that you see above may be the saving grace for life on this planet. Scientists believe that plankton may offset global warming. My other friend, the sea butterfly is a indicator as well, but they face possible extinction in under 50 years due to the rising acidity in the ocean. They will no longer be able to produce their minute shells. Clione Limacina, my Arctic dwelling Naked Sea Butterfly/Sea Angel that is featured in my video would loose the lesser sea butterfly as a food source; the Baleen whale in turn would loose the Sea Angel/Naked Sea Butterfly. So basically we are screwed. Some scientists believe that if we can artificially increase numbers of plankton, we can turn around the food chain and save our own tails.

If you look at the three clear white shapes in the bottom image, they are Pleurobrachia pileus, or the Sea Gooseberry that have arrived on the scene to dine on the glut of surging plankton.

OK enough for the Easter Sunday Science lesson...