Storyboards: "What Remains"

Attached find the storyboards for my digital video / installation -- "What Remains" ...

[Storyboards conceived by Jon Comeau, shot by Ben Baker-Smith, actor Jeff Vaudrin-McLean]

The storyboards themselves apply only to the single-channel digital video -- the installation will be slightly different, as it will incorporate multiple channels.








-jon

Recommendations

Theme Song, dir. Vito Acconci, 1973. Vito uses a video camera in CU on his face, his body in the middle and background. He undulates to seduce the viewer - using pop songs as advertisement for his sexuality. Interesting: video as masturbation ... Acconci acknowledges the viewers nonexistence to him: "I can feel your body right next to me ... I know I'm only kidding myself ... you're not here."

Check Acconci out on UBU.

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Death Day Suit: with self-inflicted damage, dir. Jubal Brown, 2002. In DV, Brown showcases the injuries he has inflicted on himself over the past 10+ years, chronicling the possibility of suicide and/or death at any moment. Absolute nihilism, pure schizophrenic ecstasy [what would Baudrillard say?]. Brown counts his scars, relaying tedious information to us, yet the scars are not showcased in a manner apparent to the viewer - for instance, chronologically. Time has no meaning, and, simultaneously, time means everything: all this pain will end.

Bare Bones

I realize that, when I meditate, there is only me: as if I were in a room surrounded on all sides by mirrors and all I could see was myself. It is at times freeing, at times frightening - always sobering. It makes me think of the past - of things and people gone, what I haven't done. And I think of the present and realize that the past is a mere illusion, predicated on the absolution of memory. In Sans Soleil, Marker's woman says - and I paraphrase - "Memory is the silver lining to the clouds of forgetfulness," which is why the past is romanticized, never allowed to disintegrate. But it seems a disreality - we can never prove it.

I return - in my meditation - and think of the present: of where I am, what this is. What is this? Where is this? And I realize the present is predicated on a history of reality - the past once more. Rules of the present are the mistakes of the past - the painful memories. Thus, what is the present but a reflection of the past? But the past itself is an illusion - thus, what is the present but a reflexive, painful memory of the past - itself a romanticized, unprovable illusion?

All I can see clearly is myself but this - like reality, like the past, like the present - is but a reflection of other reflections. I cannot prove myself - whether I exist or not. Descartes' statement is utter bullshit - perhaps his thoughts are an illusion themselves.

But this notion of "illusions" must also be cast aside, for the very notion of illusion is a ground on which to stand. One could become paranoid, believing that one is surrounded by illusion - evil illusion, even. But, really, this paranoia simply arises from the fear of being fundamentally different. Those who are different are paranoid - paranoia arises from a view of reality that differs from the norm. But really this is just a dumbing down of the fundamental actuality of the human existence: all experience differently (if we claim that "all" exist). Therefore, even illusion must be cast aside.

Nothing is proven in any case. All is groundless.