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A Certain Quality of Light explores the dissolution of a shared reality through the apparatus of post-production, structured around the aftermath of a romantic and professional collaborative relationship. The work is composed through digital fragments: emails, screen recordings, and the interface of Kate’s editing software, which becomes a space of negotiating loss, authorship, and the instability of the image. As Kate reassembles the footage from their shared project, the timeline itself becomes a field of tension: presence vs. absence, the image as evidence and the image as betrayal. By foregrounding editing as both a technical and emotional act, A Certain Quality of Light interrogates the ethics of looking, the subdued violence of narrative closure, and the potential of the cut as a motion of refusal. What does it mean to re-encounter someone through footage? When the gaze becomes unbearable, is the cut the only ethical gesture left?


excerpt
to view the entire film, please email matthewrobertcarlson@gmail.com

2024
Digital video, color, sound, 37 minutes