Today marks the beginning of what some parts of the Christian church celebrate as the season of epiphany. I've been creating a video art installation for my church's celebration of epiphany (I'll blog about the process and include a video clip later), but here's the image on the cover of our liturgy books and my statement.
As I developed this epiphany installation, I tried to focus on two tensions/relationships.
The first tension is the relationship between Christmas and Epiphany. I’ve always been intrigued by the dialogue between these two church seasons which alternately focus upon:
the ARRIVAL of the Incarnation -- and -- the RECOGNITION of the Incarnation.
~both essential elements of our Christian Faith.
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The second tension is the disparity / relationship between:
seeing things -- and -- the emergence of Sight or Vision.
Cinema has always thrilled me because of its ability to provide Sight and Vision. The stories, the scale, the color, the projection, the mise en scene. Since the earliest movies I remember, cinema has always baptized my imagination and provided me with new eyes: a fresh VISION, a second SIGHT of my world.
Watching a movie includes all kinds of unconscious physiological and psychological labor. Our eyes need to limit their focus to a screen. Our brains must link disparate images together into a seamless flow. Our eyes and brains must together sort through a mish-mash of colors, tones, highlights and shadows, and distinguish between a constantly shifting figure and ground.
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I strain so hard to achieve Vision. I use my seeing to look up, but too often encounter the limits and fragmentation that prohibit me from catching Sight or Vision of the Hope I long for.
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For me, Epiphany occurs at the moment when Sight and Vision transcend all the limited and broken realities of seeing. Epiphany celebrates how even my broken perceptions of Incarnation can receive healing Light and reflect Hope-filled Vision.
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