2014
FLY CAUGHT IN THE EYE OF A FILMMAKER MAKING A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT AN INSECT TRAP
Effigy of the obsolesce of cinema (Icelandic midge, ionized 24k gold, insect pin, publication)

with Hermione Spriggs
New Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

“My body is all eyes. Look at it! Be not afraid. I look in all directions!”

In the summer of 2013, while shooting 16mm film of a Malaise Trap (ubiquitous trap for gathering flying insects), I temporarily lost my vision when a small flying midge landed right in my eye. The sting forced me to stop the camera, everything went black as I squeezed the muscles in my forehead. It was a complex situation, a fly caught in the eye of a filmmaker making a documentary about an insect trap.... The Malaise trap is considered by initiated entomologists as a passive entity, because it gathers its bounty of flying insects while standing still, intersecting with their flight paths, which as it seems, are largely determined by currents of wind which flow through the immediate surroundings, interweaving with higher-level weather patterns. We were shooting near Iceland’s most powerful fumarole, and standing near to it with my eyes closed made me realize just how loud this breathing entity actually was. It was at a volume which made the deep roaring sound inseparable from the force which was apparently creating it. I wasn’t just listening to the center of the earth, but encountering it as it spilled out into this completely empty, frigid landscape. Having finally removed my gloves I was able to pry my eye open for a moment and remove the still intact specimen.

Minuscule, around two millimeters in size, the midge lay dead in my cupped palm. Wings and legs out, perfectly intact. The impact of this situation was phenomenal, phenomenological even, questions slipped into my awareness without pressure or extended effort:

What happens when bodies of knowledge shift back towards the body itself?

What does it mean to accept the worldviews which study life through its carcass?