The Tenor and the Vehicle

(1996)

Video. Also title of MFA Thesis Exhibition, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax.

Materials: emergency blankets (silver mylar), fans, video projection (stills above).

Excerpt of video appears on the Metal God cdrom.

A two sided-headed beast looms. You can guess. How to present doubt. “Many people have a tree planted in their heads, but the brain itself is much more like grass.” My ears hurt. Turn them off. Where the hell is my dictionary? I want no part of it. A series of synoptic lives. Not a movie. Remote, deprived and exhausted. Seemingly peripatetic (no relation to homeopathetic). Don’t forget incontinence.

Fiction stems from retracing the steps first missed, from forgotten promises, from empty excitements, from living blah. I want everything. Doubt the present. Hurt my ears. “Be fast, even while standing still.” Through the backdoor we circle our way back in to the questioning. Ultimately a catachresis. But windy.