Title: UNTITLED by chance and desire
Duration: 3:27
Direction: Myrto Papadaki
Music: Lost Bodies, “Body, Remember” (based on the poem by C.P. Cavafy)
About
The video is a comment on the co-existence between chance and the conscious effort to (re)create oneself. Two opposing notions that do not exclude one another, but they can co-exist as such. Like experiences and hopes, memories and expectations, the past and the future constantly meet in the present to define who we are. This dynamic, common ground is the body, the physical presence. The words of C. P. Cavafy, “Body, remember”, unfold within this visual narrative, with a meaning which today seems more urgent than ever:
Body, remember not just how much you were loved,
not simply those beds on which you have lain,
but also the desire for you that shone
plainly in the eyes that gazed at you,
and quavered in the voice for you, though
by some chance obstacle was finally forestalled.
Now that everything is finally in the past,
it seems as though you did yield to those desires ―
how they shone, remember, in the eyes that gazed at you,
how they quavered in the voice for you ― body, remember.
C.P. Cavafy, 1918
(translated from Greek by Stratis Haviaras)
Body, remember not just how much you were loved,
not simply those beds on which you have lain,
but also the desire for you that shone
plainly in the eyes that gazed at you,
and quavered in the voice for you, though
by some chance obstacle was finally forestalled.
Now that everything is finally in the past,
it seems as though you did yield to those desires ―
how they shone, remember, in the eyes that gazed at you,
how they quavered in the voice for you ― body, remember.
C.P. Cavafy, 1918
(translated from Greek by Stratis Haviaras)
Athens, December 2013
~
Participations:
Athens International Video Art Festival, 2014, Technopolis Athens
