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.

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. 

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.