The Video & Text

`Andromeda' is a nineteenth century text by the poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), an extract from `Pauline' (1833). Browning was noted for an obscure and personal iconography. The visuals counterpoise the text (one very much in the romantic mould) with a computer-modelled cemetery based on the Cimitero di Staglieno in Genoa, one of the finest examples of European Nineteenth-Century Neoclassical funerary architecture. Situated within this are various images from tombs in the actual cemetery (e.g. `Faith' by Santo Varni (1807-1885)) and images from some cemeteries in St. Petersburg. These are used to explore the Nineteenth-Century association of female allegorical statuary with the iconography and erotics of death, recomposed within the simulated cemetery (with its overtones of computer-game imagery) and some visual references to the films of Ken Russell. This type of iconographic mélange attempts to delineate some of the liminality of death and the ambivalence of its representations.

The Music

The title music and Andromeda are both based on baroque-type chord progressions. The idea here was to write rich and dark music that was primarily contrapuntal in nature. These techniques were used to elicit the brooding and introspective nature of the accompanying visuals and romantic texts.

Note: This was the 'blurb' from the "Liminal" interactive CD-ROM (2000). The video was made on a Mac in c.1996, using 3D animation and compositing, with footage shot in St. Petersburg, Russia. The music was composed by Glenn Rogers, performed by Alistair Foote, Penelope Reynolds and Samantha Podeu. Audio production by Alistair Dudfield. © Peter Morse 1996. It was hard work to make stuff on a desktop computer in those days...
Supported by the Australian Film Commission.