Almost There, 2013, 07:00 minutes


“Almost There“ brings the viewer deep beneath the sea to a floating mental landscape. The video is comprised of three studies of an underwater house, each one accompanied by a conversation about the nature of being connected, of movement and loss, and of wanting to get back to a party.


The conversation consists of texts between two beings one assumes are the inhabitants of the house. Never hearing voices or knowing the sex of the texters, this form of conversation references online exchanges. In Transmission #1 we see a house being pulled along by two ropes underwater. What is the house connected to? Where is it going? Never “landing,” it bobs along in its own hermetic space. Perhaps connected to the Net and disconnected from its own physical “roots,” the house is somewhat reminiscent of an armchair traveler. In Transmission #2 the patterned stripes of the house dissolve into liquid beams of light. The walls lose their permanence and their ability to contain and protect, representing the dissolution of our own personal barriers in contemporary cyber-reality. In Transmission #3 we return to the house, this time free floating and surrounded by underwater clouds. As a place it is beautiful, existing in its own magical reality. But it is disconnected from the land, which looks electric and as though it too was in constant motion, and the inhabitants of the house seem unsure if they have indeed reached their destination. 


Throughout the video the view remains in the dreamlike realm of the sea, which has historical associations related to a narrative of risk. In “Almost There“ the sea represents a place of uncertainty and of risk. We are afloat and surrounded by an uninhabitable, though lush, environment. A reference to our precarious position in the natural world, this video uses the sea not only because of its beauty, but because water itself is an increasingly pertinent medium to question our location and ambiguous grounding in the world.