Stone is a short film based on a story about a group of Spanish villagers that were living on two sides of a river. No bridges connected the sides of the river, and the villagers could not swim. By carrying a stone and holding their breath, they had just enough time to walk over the bottom of the river to the other side. I thought this image was so simple and beautiful that I got the urge to re-enact it myself. The film is a compilation of multiple shots that have been spliced into one seemingly continuous scene. The trickery of the montage makes it that it seems like I hold my breath much longer than I actually do.

In my super8 films, water is a sustenance that connects landscape, body, and film. Water is used for developing film, but only works when its temperature and volume are perfectly controlled. Water needs to stay out of the camera, but cameras can register, slow down or even freeze the versatility of water. Bodies might drown in water, but at the same time are dependent on it for sustenance. Water can cut land apart or connect different faraway places. Water has the affordances of infrastructure, colonial power, natural disaster and chemistry.

One thing I enjoy about using a stone in this way is how a simple technology that has to do with weight, with buoyancy, changes the way my body functions. When I swim, I pretend to be like a fish. Now I was crawling over the underwater surface like a strange lobster. Or like someone walking on the moon. Maybe this could be what an assemblage is. A body and an object that together becomes something else.