{"id":1167,"date":"2017-04-05T22:33:03","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T22:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2017-04-05T23:30:48","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T23:30:48","slug":"losing-your-self-with-the-quay-brothers-ryan-trecartin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/04\/05\/losing-your-self-with-the-quay-brothers-ryan-trecartin\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing Your Self with the Quay Brothers & Ryan Trecartin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The screen flickers between close-up images of graphite stained fingernails, bands of light oscillating over windows that snap open and shut, and eerie Martian landscapes. All are punctuated by the peculiar audio drones and pitches, an avant-garde soundtrack composed by \u00a0Karlheinz Stockhausen. So constructs the twenty minute psycho-drama directed by the Quay Brothers in the year 2000, <\/span>In Absentia<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Quay Brothers in 2001 for OffScreen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The short film follows the story of a woman, albeit lacking specific details. She is shuttered up in an institutional-looking manor. She obsessively sharpens pencils and writes letters, filling the pages with sentences laid atop sentences so that the meaning is indiscernible. She ritualistically places broken pencil tips outside her window. She drops the letters down a grandfather clock, whose base is visually filled with similar letters. Because she chooses not to postmark them? Because she is not allowed to? Because she is imprisoned? Because the letter recipient is dead?<\/p>\n