Videos with Mom

“Breast” (3:25 min.) “Follow” (5:46 min.) “Haircut” (2:46 min.) “Passing” (8:12 min.) Originally I’d been working on a larger project dealing with the exploration of subjective self through intimate relationships: my mother and two ex-girlfriends. My mother was willing to cooperate. We shot “experiments”, “tests”, and “games” throughout the fall, winter, and spring semesters. I screened the footage and it played well. The absent ex-girlfriend sections atrophied. Out they went! I designed rules and scenarios, tested the ones that magnified my relationship with my mother. I did my best to think of each experiment as “What happens if I…” rather than “If we do this then…” We shot on weekends, school vacations, spontaneous drives back to New Jersey. I’ve presented the most articulate footage of our relationship to each other. – Josh Gen Solondz