Stan Brakhage

Mothlight 1963

What a moth might see from birth to death if black were white and white were black. Brakhage made Mothlight without a camera. He just pasted mothwings and flowers on a clear strip of film and ran it through the printing machine. – Jonas Mekas. Mothlight is a paradoxical preservation of pieces of dead moths in the eternal medium of light (which is life and draws the moth to death); so it flutters through its very disintegration. This abstract of flight captures matter's struggle to assume its proper form; the death of the moth does not cancel its nature, which on the filmstrip asserts itself. Mothlight is one level a parable of death and resurrection, but most really concerns the persistence of the essential form, image, and motion of being. – Ken Kelman.

Here, Brakhage is playing with shades: black and white and inverting them, similarly to my own theme. His technique and way of working with things physically is unique and has given me ideas for ways of working in the future. However, for now, I am inspired by the quality of Brakhage's final outcome. That same grainy quality is present in the works of Palefroi, however, Brakhage is using an even less polished and hands on approach. I wish that I could have spent more time looking into stop motion so that I could exactly achieve the jumpy movement effect and perfect it. Upon reflection, Brakhage's Mothlight has made me want to work more hands on, as I think that that approach could have made some more authentic outcomes.