OF BEASTS AND MEN

2016
in collaboration with Joanna Malinowska
Single-channel video with sound, 12:49 minutes 

Of Beasts and Men is a collaborative work between Joanna Malinowska and C.T. Jasper. The work is a single-channel black and white video with no sound comprised of found footage obtained from various online sources. These video fragments are then manipulated in such a way as to look historical.  The images issuing from the old format television monitor displaying the video read as if they are being projected from distressed and scratched film reels. While the video is essentially a collage of fragments of found video, it also serves as a collage of ideas surrounding humans and their relationship to nature. Some of the footage in the video captures intimate, unrestrained encounters between people and wild animals, such as wolves, bears and foxes, but these scenes are briefly interrupted by a brutal sequence of a bear being shot. The stark contrast in these moments only seems to render preexisting notions of humankind’s place in nature moot, and begs for something more.