To the End, 2007, single-channel digital video, 16:9, stereo sound, time indefinite
To The End was shot from Mont Saint Michel during a late afternoon blizzard—the camera and the artist at a distance—at low tide, where a solo figure traverses a grey expanse, cautiously navigating the terrain. Elements of chance becomes central to the work, lending to the anxiety invoked by the unstable ground below his feet. His radio transmitter embodies someone just off screen, invisible, perhaps guiding him.
O’Callaghan worked with a programmer so that the final film is viewed at random, as an infinite algorithm,
it's time indefinite and unending. Its very title betraying itself. To The End, much like the seascape, is infinitely shifting, and slippery to navigate, with no horizontal pinpoint, only the body as a marker; made fragile against the landscape, that does not separate solid from sky.
Peta Rake
Film credits
Performer: Olaf Nohr
Composer: Nicholas Littlemore
Cinematographer: Clemens Habicht, Mel O’Callaghan
Editor: Andrew van der Westhuyzen, Collider Films, Mel O’Callaghan