I just found film-maker Ryan Jeffery’s experimental short “Rise” on one of my fave sites, No Fat Clips! Turns out it’s actually a companion short to “Fallen”, which was released two years ago. Both are exquisite; filled with the languid rise of smoke and the cool flourish of air blown in from across the ocean. At a crossroads between our own bodies, nothing but flesh, and the machines we create, nothing but metal. Poetry in pure motion.
As I’ve always said, the very best art is that which doesn’t hand us its reasons for being but merely exists and forces us to decide for ourselves what its meaning must be. The best art does not acquiesce to our apathy. It refuses, and challenges, and like a jewel pulled deep from the earth reveals its secrets only to those who’ve worked hard enough to earn them . “Fallen” and “Rise” are just that to me…
I know it’s a big bad crazy world out there, but my challenge to you is to take a moment – whenever you’re free for 15 minutes – to watch these shorts. Abandon expectation, think of nothing, click play, and dive in…
“Fallen” (2006)
Vodpod videos no longer available.“Rise” (2008)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Jeffery reveals on his site: “The first chapter Fallen, depicts an Eve-like character’s introduction to technology and the divine consequences of this meeting. The second chapter, Rise, resumes many years later, long after the female character’s first meeting with technology. Here she has transformed from her original Eve-like state of naked innocence into a clothed mysterious being. In place of her original naivety our character now holds a cryptic knowledge of the natural world often feared and marked as witchcraft. As a result of this transformation the two characters of machine and human have switched their roles of protagonist and antagonist.”
Both films’ soundtracks are by Ethan Rose and the scultpure is designed by Kari Merkl.
shape+colour 