What is it like to be a Music Video? Metamorphosis in the work of Chris Cunningham

Tim Horsburgh

Origin: Static Issue 05
Content: Text

‘The mental 'scandal' behind physical metamorphoses occurs because we can imagine what it is like to be a different form from our own, but can never fully realize what it is like for that form to be itself. A complete metamorphosis of mind and body would leave no remainder of the previous self and therefore should generate no anxiety. A metamorphosis of form alone however, without mind, is discomforting because the subjective character of our experience does not allow for us to know what it is like to be something else. Fictional accounts of metamorphoses into new bodies are often disturbing because of our own incomprehensibility of that organism's conscious experience. …’

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Contributor:

Tim Horsburgh is an English filmmaker and writer based in Chicago, USA. He is currently working as an associate producer for an independent TV/film production company that specialises in creating documentaries investigating vital socioeconomic issues. He is also a volunteer staff member of the Chicago Film Archives.

Tim graduated with a first-class BA in History from University College London in 2003, writing a thesis on Kidnapping in Colombia. In 2005 he received an MRes with Distinction from the London Consortium, writing his thesis on depictions of ‘living in the moment’ in millennial cinema and philosophy.

He is the co-director/co-producer (with Ian Dudley) of a trilogy of short digital films on contemporary Guyanese life that have been shown in numerous London venues, and were selected for the 2005 Bangkok Experimental Film Festival.