herd 1

In my video, titled Herd 1, an unlikely grouping of plastic bears and elk—predators and prey together—stands motionless, frozen in time. Above them, a baleful “sun” crosses overhead marking shallow cycles, reminiscent of the passage of days as seen through time-lapse photography. Each animal is oriented toward the same direction as the others, as though midway along a journey toward a common goal. Yet their passage is contextless, with neither beginning nor end, stimulus nor consequence. Reduced to functioning as sundial styluses, the animals’ shadows arcing about them again and again, the herd ceases to represent the imperatives of the “natural” word, becoming instead a meditation on time and eternity.

Herd 1
Looped, single-channel video
03:36 mins.
2010

© 2010 by Edwin Janzen. All rights reserved.

Return to home page.