VIEW CLIP

Cast: Nina Fog, Zeena Parkins

Line Producer: Tom Dingle

Production Manager: Ioanna Karavela

Composer and Sound Designer: Zeena Parkins

Director of Photography: Nina Kellgren

Editor: Guy Ducker

First Camera Assistant: Mike Green
Second Camera Assistant: John Hurley

B Camera Operator: Neus Olle
B Camera Assistant: Alison Lai

Gaffer: Ewan Cassidy
Sparks: Suzie Willett, Annika Sommerson

Sound Recordist: Mike Hasler
Sound Mixer: Quentin Chiappetta
Additional Music: Ikue Mori, Shelley Hirsch

Still Photographer: Thierry Bal

Makeup Artist: Caroline Weston  
Art Department Assistants: Karolina Raczynska, Erica Cheung, Taka Goto, Jacob Wolff, Charlotte Crowther, Daniel Yeo, Amanda Simon

Thanks to:
Nina Folkersma
RoseLee Goldberg
Candida Gertler
Maureen Paley
Phillipe Van Cauteren
Esa Nickle
Steve Saltwell
Len Thornton
Sweet Love Café
Wallis Gallery
Watermill Center

Commissioned by
Outset, London
Performa, New York
SMAK, Ghent

HARPSTRINGS AND LAVA
Daria Martin

2007
16mm, 13 mins

Harpstrings and Lava aspires to capture the intimacy and immediacy of live performance - specifically that of composer/musician Zeena Parkins and of actor Nina Fog. The film draws out a narrative along the lines of a gothic novel, or a Grimms fairy tale: an alchemist and a feral child pull, psychologically speaking, along the continuum between control and chaos.  These poles are embodied by the performers themselves and also by constructed stage sets: a symmetrical arcade contrasts with a cave full of junk. Bridging this split geography, snaking its way between containment and release, is a forest full of vines, some of them made of fake foam, and others vitally alive. An adventure unfolds along these paths...

Though by no means made for children, Harpstrings and Lava seeks to channel the anxiety and yearning inherent in certain early nightmares, specifically in one friend’s ghoulish fantasy about clashing contradictions. In this particular childhood dream, tensile harpstrings and viscous lava inhabited the same space simultaneously, creating a sensation of visceral dread. Harpstrings and Lava aims to gently animate such ‘hyper-real’ dream images,drawing the viewer more closely to the feeling of inexorable attachment shared by the onscreen characters.