After suffering nearly a year of chronic and debilitating migraines, the pain finally knocked me into some form of radical realignment with every atom of my creative practice. These videos come directly from this source. Each was shot during a Fall 2014 residency at Kala Institute for the Arts. Untitled: Chapter XLI, In Which The Captive Continues His Tale and Gravity, A Fact Everybody Knows About were shown at Ramon's Tailor in San Francisco's Tenderloin district and Re-Mother: What is Love's Perspective will be shown at Royal NoneSuch Gallery in Oakland in March 2015.
I have begun to re-integrate my practice and feel into an authentic flow of inspiration. I continue to be concerned by even simpler and simpler human experience: how do the eyes focus? what temperature light makes my neck recoil? Now, as a migrainer, my sensitivity is acute like that of a cat with its fur nearly always at end. Is there an artificial scent in the air? An incessant rumbling noise or food allergen? Suddenly: vertigo, claustrophobia, motion sickness, airplane pressure and on and on. There is an inverse to my boundless, risk-seeking nature, an unfamiliar and burdensome new voice--new commander--and after so much fighting, I have learned to surrender to it, fully. And I have learned, that the risk is much greater, the investigation closer, the exploration deeper, and the reward greater.
Bed to Bed: A Letter to Joan Didion, Didion story In Bed 1968, Levine Letter 2015
I wrote this letter in an attempt to reach out to a fellow chronic migrainer. I am still seeking Didion out. If you, reader, web-surfer, may have any leads on connecting with the great writer heroine of our time, please connect her to my letter, I am very eager to begin an earnest dialogue with her. I can be contacted through this site. Thank you sincerely. ---AMENDMENT--: Joan DID receive this letter: On April 8th 2015, I finally reached Mrs. Didion through her publishing house, which contacted her personal assistant, who wrote me back to say: "
hi Cara--
i am Joan's assistant--i wanted to write you and let you know that Joan received your letter. she wishes you the best of luck with your migraines, and thanks you for writing.
c."
This video was also shot during a time of distress, awash in chronic debilitating migraines. It is a 20 minute meditation on the color blue. The hand cuts the paper background and simply moves the shapes in and out of the stack. The image moves from clear to fuzzy and back again. My sight becomes strained during the migraine attacks. I have learned that my nervous system calms with the color blue and by shear coincidence--or unconscious body knowledge--I had chosen to work with this color for the video before learning that the hue was therapeutic to the nervous system.
This video was shot during a period in which I was drowning in months of debilitating chronic migraine attacks. I made all of this footage in an unconscious attempt, I believe, at articulating and identifying what were, at the time, some of the unknown triggers.
Unititled Chapter XLI, In Which The Captive Continues His Tale, 9:43, 3-Channel Video Installation, 2015
Gravity, A Fact Everybody Knows About, 6:45, 3-Channel Video Installation, 2015