JOHN A. DOUGLAS

Body Fluid – The Seven Cycles: Crash Landing
2012, 7 min 42 sec

Filmed on the traditional lands of two Australian Indigenous tribes, JOHN A. DOUGLAS’ video performance Body Fluid – The Seven Cycles: Crash Landing draws on the cosmic visuality of the iconic Australian desert landscape to portray the alienation and isolating experience of chronic illness as well as the frailty of human existence. Picking up the sonic drum-beat of WALKERDEN’S work, this piece delves deeper into subjectivity and the strange, visceral and cyclical experience of the human body. This work loosely references the visual motifs found in Nicolas Roeg’s science fiction classic The Man Who Fell to Earth(1976) and elements of Russian mysticism and dreamscapes scattered throughout the cinema of Andrej Tarkovsky. The mark making in the shifting sand is temporary and reminds all of us that our time on earth is finite, just as the expiring flare suggests the fleeting nature of a human life.

The artist would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the  First People Nations of Latie Latie and Kureinji, and to their elders past and present, on whose land this video was recorded and performed.

John A Douglas is represented by Chalk Horse, Sydney, Australia

www.johnadouglas.com.au