The phantom limbs of Nancy Andrews
Still, Nancy Andrews as Ima Plume in The Haunted Camera (2006).
From The Haunted Camera (2006)
Ima Plume (voiceover): There were things I could draw pictures of, and there were things that couldn't be drawn. More and more I was attracted to the second category. There were things I wanted to describe, but I didn't know how. There were things that I wanted to show but there was no way to show them.
Flyer for MoMA screening (2003).
From The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes (2015)
Radio interviewer: Welcome to the Shifting Science of Existence Program. This evening we are very pleased to present another in our series, “The Disheveled Mind.” I am very happy to speak today to Dr. Sheri Myes, our guest for this evening. She is a medical doctor with a degree in neuroscience from the University of Moravia and she is part of a private think tank on consciousness. What has your recent research led you to?
Dr. Sheri Myes: Our paradigm for consciousness is reductionistic. We believe what our five senses tell us, but there are very many other levels of perception that are beyond our innate sensory abilities. I have compelling evidence that we can go beyond the “now” we know. And, I am on the brink of developing a technique of expanding our perceptions and consciousness.
Radio interviewer: Can you talk about your studies and methodologies?
Dr. Sheri Myes: Well, I have not gotten much support for my work from the mainstream scientific community, so I have not been able to secure funding or permits for my work. I have been working at the margins, and using myself as a research subject.
Radio interviewer: What kind of experiments have you been performing on yourself?
Dr. Sheri Myes: They involve transferring to myself the neural pathways of insects, bats, and other creatures whose senses are more extended than our own. I am also working on grafting sense organs to activate the limbic system.
My work is revolutionary.
Stills from The Reach of an Arm (2000).
“THE DREAMLESS SLEEP is a marvelous exploration of the possibilities of spiritual transformation. Sections of the film are interrupted by quotations of the five characteristics of St. John of the Cross’ “solitary bird,” the one that flies to the highest point, sings softly and has no color of its own. The flight of the bird represents the mystical ascent. This suggestion of possible heights is juxtaposed to the story of Elsa Bosselman, who drew pictures of deep sea creatures never before seen merely from phone descriptions given to her by William Bebee while in his Bathysphere 3,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. The theme is further played out by a paper puppet who enacts the imaginary life of Seint Cristyn the Mervelous (Saint Cristyn the Marvelous). The proper ambiguity is created about the meaning and possibility of this transformation.”
Still, Michole White as Dr. Sheri Myes in The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes (2015).
“For Andrews, Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism was crucial in the film’s conception and in bringing us closer to a sense of emotional truth. Surveying shamanic initiation rituals the world over, Eliade identified several of its aspects common from one culture to the next: sickness and delirium; symbolic death of the neophyte; ritual dismemberment of the body; renewal of the organs; resurrection. Within these recurring threads, the filmmaker recognized uncanny parallels to her own encounter with death, as well as an imaginative framework for reconsidering that experience through the medium of film.
ON A PHANTOM LIMB hovers in an indeterminate zone, less a place than a state of consciousness. The avian imagery seen throughout is part of this—even more than in her previous films—where birds are quite prominent. In shamanic lore, birds often act as go-betweens moving from Earth to heavens to underworld; the film itself functions in much the same manner.”
Still, Michole White as Dr. Sheri Myes in The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes (2015).
“Though the protagonists in Andrews’ works form a continuing sequence of misfits, outcasts, mutants, and mavericks, they are always content to be as they are and manifest a sense of empowerment that seems to increase in each new film Andrews creates. Although Myes is charged by the authorities with “inappropriate expression” and “interfering with the order of nature,” she has the confidence—paired with clarity of vision—to continue her experiments in hybridizing her own consciousness with the perceptive organs of a range of insects, spiders, and megafauna. ”
Drawing from Monkeys and Lumps (2003).
“When I watch Nancy Andrews’ work, I am calmly, curiously engaged, then something happens on screen, and I am suddenly deeply saddened, or deeply grateful for the beauty of the human condition. Nancy’s work has a quality that is humble and beautiful, her awkward puppets and cardboard effects create a perfect gift that is somehow painfully telling about the receiver and the giver. Nancy Andrews’ films always leave me deeply amused, deeply moved, and deeply grateful for the little lives that make up the world.”
Still, Michole White as Dr. Sheri Myes in The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes (2015).
“Nancy Andrews’ films are small treasures, finely crafted, exquisite in subtle details and as rare as they come. Her cinema is artisanal—beautiful in its homespuness, expressive in its miscellany of hand-made images, whether drawn, animated, or acted, and sly in its humor. The art of performance is integral to Andrews’ short pieces, and disguise and masquerade are keen aspects of her Ima Plume trilogy, which is at once and the same time a meditation on the universe and a hoot.”
