I GIVE YOU LIFE [2010]
Digital video with sound
12 minuts and 16 seconds
THIS VIDEO SHOULD BE VIEWED IN A DARK ENVIRONMENT WITH STEREO SOUND (HEADPHONES OR SPEAKERS)
I set out to see if I could borrow the mathematical and "cold" strategies of Structuralist filmmaking and apply them to sentimentality, as if sentiment (manipulation / mediation) were a form in and of itself, within the larger form of cinema. I never expected to make a video about Matthew Shephard, or Matthew Shephard's father, for that matter. But, after making this for reasons I'm still discerning, I can now see that we left something behind back there in 1998 - a collective void, perhaps, that keeps widening with every murdered queer kid.This piece takes the form of a loose conversation, held between multiple mediated voices or perspectives and centers around multiple voids: the blank screen (filled); the absent vocalist (filled); losing a loved one (unfilled); discarded edits (partially filled); justice (partially filled).