video performance
3:17min
editon of 5, 2 APs
description: Return is concerned with contemporary constructions of spiritually ("post-New Age”), and the methods by which humans today appropriate spirituality and religious “sound bites” to make decisions and justify behavior, often with global consequence. The performance/video explores themes of persecution, justice, faith, presence/absence, death/renewal, and a return to the unknown. A treadmill is used to ironically mirror the iconic Catholic tale of "walking on water,” while invoking a literal metaphor of going somewhere but nowhere, yet, transport (in a metaphysical sense) seems possible.
The music is Peter Gabriel's song "Open," from the soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ (slightly slowed down to match the pace of walking backwards on the lowest possible setting of the treadmill), applied to the video as an acoustic rendering of the performance’s conceptual intent.
image above: video still from Return
image above: video still from Return