Miasma

Digital video, 2011

Miasma is an experimental video intended to be projected with live music improvisation. The viewer at home is invited to choose their own music to play alongside the video. Miasma evokes the power of the swamp, decay, and the attempt at purification amidst pollution. In Greek mythology, miasma was a contagious power believed to have a life of its own. A fearful, invisible effluvia which emanated from swamps and decaying organic matter, in later centuries developed into a theory of disease, a noxious form of "bad air" or foul vapors in the environment responsible for all manner of illness and epidemics. If not from the natural environment, it was believed to be caused by immoral individuals; contaminating entire families, cities, and societies. It was only through the filling-in of the swamplands, expulsion of the outsider, or sacrificial death of the offender that it was able to be purged. What is gained and what is lost in the quest for purification?