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"Towards the unknown land with Terror hand in hand and whither we all journey with hurtling haste or turtle tardy it awaits us on the oceans other side So am I summoned that I should rush headlong or shall I circle back bearing an excuse or exeat to take the long way round ? who knows what will be found on the far shores of the unknown land" |
It starts somberly enough after the ident, with the tolling of a bell over Donnes famous homily, launching into shots of scenery rushing past intercut with the sleeping protagonist, who arises, performs his ablutions, dresses and leaves by bus for a journey into town.
After the first arising, it is clearly summer and the protagonist is seen travelling by bus into the crowded city ending up it appears in a chapel, where a preacher is declaiming, seemingly about the film we are watching. The artist is not impressed and the scene shifts magically from Coventry Cathedral through a series of landscapes to a mundane winter train journey into London, heard over a beautifully orchestrated Palestrina track during which we here the artist reciting the poem that opens this page.
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Copyright © 2005 Laurence Arnold
This page created Sunday January 9th 2005
"Terra Incognita"
has been several years in the making, originating as a
student piece of work blurring the distinctions between
documentary and fiction essentially documenting the
process of making the version yet to come. Since that
time much of the footage has been reshot digitally though
it contains some elements of the earlier piece and
footage even prior to that so that it really is a
progression through time as the artist grows more
competent as a videographer and changes visibly in
appearance.
This is the first of a similar set of levees,
rather like groundhog day, but each time followed by a
different set of circumstances.
The narrative if it can be called that then
proceeds to the 2004 Annual general meeting of the
National Autistic society, where we lern a few facts
about autism and it is announced that the protagonist is
himself autistic. This scene features the Chairman of the
NAS and Professor Simon Baron Cohen as well as the brief
appearance of Jane Asher, seen here..
After the meeting and varios night time
scenes the protagonist ends the day with a reversal of
the levee scene and narrates a monologue from his bed
before he retires to the same dreams of trees against the
sky that began the scene, neatly encapsulating the first
act.