light is the first bodily form

“light is the first bodily form.” INCITE! Journal of Experimental Media 1 (Fall 2008): 128-9.

… all that sense can comprehend, is Light: because it partakes of that which it is. To comprehend dark, or a shape, it must withdraw from its own nature – it must withdraw or turn against its own electrical illuminating nature in order to comprehend a shape.¹
Stan Brakhage

light is the first bodily form (2007) pays homage to the philosopher of light, Robert Grosseteste. The title is intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek since this video was made entirely in the dark, using only a circuit bent webcam. No additional computer effects were added to the video. The music is the song “Rain Serenade” by Natural Snow Buildings.

Circuit bending is the creative rewiring of toys and other low voltage electronics. I believe that I am one of the first people to circuit bend a webcam; however, circuit bending of other video equipment, such as the Fisher Price PXL 2000, is common.

Circuit bent webcam used in the making of *light is the first bodily form*.

Still from *light is the first bodily form*.

“Stan Brakhage – The Text of Light,” Cantrills Filmnotes 21/22 (April 1975). This text is a transcription of the introduction and the question-and-answer session after a screening of Brakhage’s film The Text of Light (1975). Brakhage was paraphrasing from Robert Grosseteste’s work, On Light or the Ingression of Forms. [↩]