This is a short video essay. It features filmed material and found footage. When making it I was tackling the question of “development of cinematic ideas in space”. I was working on the crossroad between conventional and immersive film and what I thought of firstly was the idea of “vertical editing and building of meaning”. I imagine this film as a vertical see-through deck of cards that I lay down on the table.
In terms of questions, I was asking myself two things: What do images want? How do we talk about ethics of technology in the context of immersive media? A mini experiment within this one are the images of my colleague – Nina Jan. In several moments in the film we can see her ghost-like body. What we did was to film her in a completely dark environment and illuminate only her body. Then I filmed her move and dance. Afterwards, I turned off the lights and projected the recording of her in real size. Thus, the light of the recorded Nina was the only thing that would reveal the real one. Then she had to repeat the same movements from earlier. What happens in the darkness of the hall is a very strong oscillation between the real movement and the video projection. It is very often impossible to say where a body ends and projection starts. For me, this was an interpretation of the difference between cognitive and visual work in immersive images. For me “a sparkle on the surface of an eye” is an internal holistic discussion about immersive media and spatial filmmaking. I have capsulated in it all my questions from that moment of the process and keep it as my “secret notebook” in case I forget something.