“MARSH” is an experimental stop motion animation filmed in a salt marsh in Provincetown, MA. Over the course of a full tide cycle, the site transforms from a desert-like environment to a full ocean scape, and back again. “MARSH” responds to these epic tidal shifts and this site of constant change with improvised stop motion.
Throughout the video, fantastical characters perform and sing on behalf of the marsh, as if performing a fragmented ecological opera. Several of the puppets are made out of marsh materials, such as peat (the spongy, mud-like, partially decomposed matter that defines marshlands and is a major carbon-sinking force) and marsh hay (which is swept to the edges of the marsh with each high tide). The “MARSH” soundscape integrates field recordings of the marsh from above and below water, granular synth experimentation with samples of field recordings, theremin, and voice.
“MARSH” explores the marsh as a site where human activity is metabolized but never fully digested. (If there is a nuclear disaster on the other side of the planet, traces of nuclear material can be found in Provincetown’s marsh in the sedimentary layer from that year). The marsh becomes a kind of mirror to human activity, which is a theme throughout the video: characters gaze upon themselves in mirrors, send mirrors out to sea, or find their reflections in the rising tide.
