During the first year of the Covid Pandemic, working first with interdisciplinary artist Alisha Trimble and then with the performers Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell, I made a total of three of what I call Poe Plague Covid Videos. These are based on three stories by Edgar Allan Poe in which he makes reference to a plague: The Masque of the Red Death, Shadow and The Sphinx. 

During those early months of Covid, Alisha Trimble and I began to collaborate remotely. Using my cellphone I began by filming and reframing what she showed me over zoom of whatever she was doing. This included dancing, cutting fabric and displaying for me a few framed works that contain embroidery of French idiomatic expressions. We quickly agreed on Poe’s story as a structuring device.

Masque is the longest of the three videos. We didn’t know how long this would be the situation of the world, each of us isolated, communicating over suddenly essential video conferencing–isolated except for essential workers that included the lowest paid workers risking their lives delivering essential items. This sense of being trapped with the usual guideposts of time and space torn up is reflected in the feeling of the work. Poe lived during the 19th century in America and I always imagine a greater self-reliance among people back then. They had to keep themselves entertained. That’s what Alisha Trimble and I were doing, keeping ourselves entertained. Poe was the perfect guest.

The second short video, SHADOW, I made with Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell of Happenstance Theater. Operating the cellphone with which the video was filmed was left to the performers Mark and Sabrina, as well as set design and costuming. Thanks to technical assistance provided by Bradley Hinton, I was able to see directly what the cellphone was seeing and in this way direct the positioning of the camera. In SHADOW Mark and Sabrina play a total of seven characters. I combined their various performances by using multiple tracks when editing during postproduction. Like MASQUE there was a feeling of playfulness in how I approached the work. Like pilgrims in Canterbury Tales, fate had cast us together and we were sharing our abilities to entertain each other and hopefully create the material for a video that would have an audience. 

The final of the three short films made from Poe’s three tales about the plague is SPHINX. By the time I had begun working on this third film Covid had become more manageable. Alisha Trimble and I worked together in New York City where I filmed her dancing the role of the Sphinx Moth against a green screen. That fall I journeyed to Maryland where I filmed Mark and Sabrina playing the couple whose relationship is disrupted by the appearance of the Sphinx Moth. It’s the shortest of the three, no doubt reflecting yet another revision of a relation to time and space.

All three videos have music that remains close to my heart. The first composed by Louis Moutin in Paris and played by members of his family who are also amazing musicians. The next two videos were made with music by Silent Strike in Budapest. The Sphinx includes the voice of Lucia.