Gisele Trudel

SHIFT explores the loss associated with movement from one place to another and the loss associated with an intimate experience of death. Death deconstructs. Things fall apart including the sense of a unified self. Ideas of continuity and stability are eroded. Images shot in Scotland, Saskatchewan and Montreal are combined with studio footage to create an associative narrative about an experience for which ordinary language is inadequate.

Human beings define themselves in opposition to both nature and technology. Emission attempts to confound any simplistic analysis of these worn-out dualities. The video comprises eight episodes that are grouped into three acts. The first addresses technology and language. The second implies a breakdown of language and a movement towards being animal. The third envisions a confrontation with our animal nature.

Two young men engage in sexual acts in an enchanted forest lit by disco lights, while nuns and teddy bears voyeuristically look on with delight.