Of Experience

‘A Hundred Parts, A Hundred Faces’

2014
A series of moving image works that draw from a personal archive of moving image and diary texts, vibrant moments from everyday life.
The films’ titles and texts draw from the essays of Montaigne, one of the most influential writers of the 16th century, who tried to create an honest self-portrait including all the strengths, weaknesses, fears and joys of his daily life experiences.

Music by Dirty Three, with kind permission of Warren Ellis
Voice over: Elizabeth Marshall

Supported by Arts Council, England

VOICE OVER:

I ‘pass’ the time when tide and time are sticky and unpleasant: when good, I savour it and hold on to it.
We run the gauntlet through the bad, and recline on the good.

Pastimes, to pass the time, letting time leak and slip away, by-passing it, avoiding it, ignoring it, fleeing from it.

But I know life to be something different: nature has given it into our hands garnished with such agreeable attributes.
I find it to be both of great account and delightful – even as I grasp it now in its final waning;

If it weighs on us, or slips uselessly from us, we have but ourselves to blame. [1]

[1] Text adapted from Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. A. Screech, Reprint edition (London, England ; New York, N.Y., USA: Penguin Classics, 1993), pg.1262-1623


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