White Noise
On March 8, 2021, the Bedford Record Review reported a possible jumper on the Interstate 684 overpass. The female jumper said “she was having a bad but did not intend to self-harm”. As the overpass was close to home, three properties down from my driveway, this news was shocking to hear. However, as we have reached the year anniversary of COVID-19 and quarantine, the time has come to assess people’s mental health. As the overpass is very close to my home, I wanted to examine this paved overpass in relation to the country environment that surrounds it. Clearly, this woman was experiencing a mental health episode, but the fact that the paved, metal bridge was more alluring to her than the beautiful, natural environment surrounding it was curious to me. The experimental film White Noise confronts the division between the modern highway and the surrounding natural environment. I live near the overpass on Interstate 684, a road that eventually leads to New York City. This highway is always busy with commuters. The highway noise echoes within the surrounding area. Even when one is surrounded by nature, the highway noise echoes for miles. I decided to capture different angles of the overpass’s railing with glimpses of the passing cars and included the surrounding natural elements. I jump cut scenes of the highway with nature scenes. By doing this, the viewer is bombarded first by chaotic, fast scenes with loud audio and then scenes of calmness. Yet, this woman was equally existing within each environment. Also, I zoomed in on visuals rather than showing the full camera angle. By doing that, I created new perspectives for myself and discovered new visual elements of the bridge that I had never noticed before. In the end, I equated the man-made visuals with the natural environment.
Video Distortion: Marriage 1950
One-Shot Video
“One-Shot Video”. 5-minute-long footage documenting the walk with my dogs.