STILLE.D is a meditation on Walter Benjamin’s concepts of ruin (as nostalgia, regret, decay, loss), as well as the paradox of the bourgeois interior constituting both refuge and amplification of the alienating impulses of the city. It plays with the different definitions of “stille” such as stillness, to put (in place), a drop (of liquid), finding a corollary with Stephen Chen’s musical setting of Philip Larkin’s poem.
Exploiting the light leaks and selective focus effects of lens whacking, STILLE.D is both a synthesis of Stephen’s earlier photographic series, MELANCHOLY OBJECTS, as well as a personal memorial to the house Stephen has stayed in the longest since fleeing to N. America. A companion piece to PACED (refracting the veneer of the exterior into the interior), it represents the end of a cycle that first began in his poetry series PSYCHEDELIC DREAMS.
RUNNING TIME: 03:16 | COMPLETED: 03/13 | DIRECTOR: Stephen Chen | DISTRIBUTOR: CFMDC
