Everything flows; nothing remains.  [Everything moves;
 nothing is still. Everything passes away; nothing lasts.]

               - from Herakleitos and Diogenes, translated by Guy Davenport

Empty Houses, video essay, 23min
(click image for excerpt)

screenings :

Sept - Nov 2010, Scottsdale Public Art, Scottsdale, AZ
Oct. 2009, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ
April 2009, Katrina Conference, University of Denver, Denver, CO

***

Empty Houses is an autobiographical video essay following four roadtrips to my homestate of Mississippi.  On these visits, I found myself, seemingly by chance, in spaces recently vacated for one reason or another:  a family home, a ruined plantation, a suicide house, a demolished coastal town.  The snapshots I took on these roadtrips form the skeleton of this video.

What does it mean to return home and find nothing, or only fragments?  What nourishment comes from visiting places of absence, such as ghost towns?  Do we need access to ruins in order for our imaginations to perform certain functions?  Empty Houses is a brief investigation into the grief, fascination, horror, and romance of vacated spaces. 

- Noah Saterstrom, 2010