Reflective Encounters

“In a musty, damp crevice somewhere below sea level, a microcosm of fleshy creatures live in a dark, moist biome, exploring one another and continuously bathing in a seemingly nourishing viscous mucus. The film uses close-ups and bright lighting to replicate the use of microlens photography footage in nature documentaries, creating a believable world which these simple creatures inhabit. A unique modelling process using clay cores covered in thin, intricately painted silicone skin sheaths is used in tandem with stop-motion techniques in a way that feels uncanny in its truest sense, creating movement that feels alive and organic whilst remaining knowingly artificial and thus unreal. 

These beings live with no sight, hearing, speech, taste or smell, instead relying purely on nature’s earliest and most pervasive sense – touch – toiling and fighting for more of it in their minimal world. As we watch their entire life cycle, their increasing desire for dominance ultimately becomes their downfall as their symbiotic existence is destroyed and they themselves perish. A powerfully tactile journey into the fundamentals of life and decay.”

— Laura-Beth Cowley