The last vestiges of hope

[Jem Raid]

The video is deliberately low quality and blurs at full screen best viewed as is on this page, Please use headphones for the best sound

I thought of dance, my poses are dance related, I am nearer to death than I am to my birth. I used what I see around me, what I am familiar with for my images and altered and merged them and incorporated my own image into these.

Always at the back of my mind as I created the images was the thought that this work ephemeral though it might be could very well survive my own demise. I wanted above all to create something that gave some hope with beauty.

This was video of the week at; Le Festival International de Vidéo Danse de Bourgogne, Curated by Marisa Hayes and Franck Boulègue at the Video Dance Center of Burgundy and screened in early May 2016

I made the soundtrack using Rob Jackson's iPad app Moodscaper

The full video is 7 minutes long and rendered to MP4 FHD. I give the video to interested collectors together with an ekphrastic poem. Please send me a nice PM if you would like the video. I value direct contact with collectors far more than any money I might make.

Cheers - J

 

[Asher Kelman]

I am impressed by the artistry.

However I am mystified by the analogy to Jesus on the Cross yet the following Video with the same title by an apparently Buddhist orator!

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Jem,

Are you mocking religion and belief in saviors, as being ridiculous in the face of the planets destruction by us?

Asher

 

[Jem Raid]

Hello Asher,

Read into it what you wish, whatever satisfies you, I am the mere maker. I had many a conversation with Marisa and Franck about it in the end they laughed and realised that I had just made it as it flowed along from the first image until the time limit. David Hockney said don't analyse, do it, big FULL STOP. Great advice from a BBC R4 interview.

Cheers - J

 

[Asher Kelman]

What I “imagine” here is not so important in this instance.

You being a “Maker” of this art, like a manufacture of plastic buckets we can put anything we wish in? Hardly!

You are THE designer of this remarkable video!

You made an immense effort to execute a driving central idea. The question is what was that so-important-philosophy instigating and powering this huge effort that you needed to express?

Let’s try!

As a start, this video represents your thoughts. But we already know you are obsessed and disturbed by collapse of species, (rightly so),

.... and even build “habitats for insects”! Add that to your self-portrayed “Jesus” figure with gold over his private's:

So now, I get it! This is an existential call for attention:

In the face devastating of loss of habitat, pollution and collapse of migratory birds, HUGE mass extinction of species, not seen for the last 50,000 years, we need action by man, not relying on “Heaven”!

 

[Jem Raid]

Hello Asher,

Your quite right some of us are exhibitionists and other are voyeurs, we both need each other.
That applies to every artist and every appreciator of art on the planet.
Lol
No need to question it, it's merely stating the obvious

Cheers - J

 

[Charlotte Thompson]

Jem

What a great last name! What I feel in this work is a view of time and humanity. It is a dark story of man. nature, and possible questions. Art in its course will always question you. Your work here does that.

Charlotte