Pneuma (S)

In Stoic philosophy “pneuma” is the “soul” or fiery wind permeating the body, and at death survives the body but as impersonal energy. Similarly, the “world pneuma” permeates the details of the world. The images in this film come from an extensive collection of out-dated raw stock that has been processed without being exposed, and sometimes rephotographed in closer format. Each pattern of grain takes on its own emotional life, an evocation of different aspects of our own being. A world is revealed that is alive with the organic deterioration of film itself, the essence of cinema in its before-image, preconceptual purity. The present twilight of reversal reality has made this collection a fond farewell to those short-lived but hardy emulsions.