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Sean Smuda

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Moment of the Day Allegory

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for Jeremy

Moment of the Day Allegory | Media List


Statement

This piece was displayed in the 2002 Minnesota State Fair. The following text was given to the models as an explanantion of their roles:
Allegory of the Moment of the Day

Purpose: To represent the impossibility of capturing Time.
The Setting: a Painter's studio (this was originally conceived of as a catalogue of Photography's cliches).
The Players:
Center- a skinny Young Man, eyes shut. He is the fulcrum of The Minute Hand. He holds The Baby. The Young Man is calm, contemplative, savoring. The Baby does whatever she wants to of course. If she is blurred in the final shot, so be it.
The Baby is the fulcrum of The Second Hand. Much hinges on her disposition, as this will influence the rest of the crew.
To the Right is a tall, thin, Yawning Man of somewhat severe, yet abstracted, demeanor. He covers his mouth with his right hand.
To the Left, held by The Arm-Tatoo'd-of-a-Wheel-with-Wings, is The Pistol aimed at the Yawning Man. Together they span the room, representing The Hour Hand.
As the rest of the players represent The Clock, they must have an overseer, Time Itself.
A Woman, like the Egyptian Goddess Nut, the true Caretaker of Time (building and dissolving the moment). She shall be reclined in front of the Young Man, a la the Odalisque in Manet's "Olympia" (see footnote*). All players should represent, with extreme unction, their assigned roles: expressionism holds no place here as it is the mere selfish gloss of style before the face of Eternity.
Possible Template Overlays (UNNECESSARY)(post-production): Interior drawings of UFO's by eye-witnesses, as Alien minds are said to perceive reality as holographic projections of all historical data, and therefore their seemingly random missions may well be the expression of an extreme need for a Weltanschaung of significant human contact: to read our emotions as historical signifiers (a meta-nature of our own internal clocks which we'll have realized in this photograph dedicated to the stars).

* At the time, "Olympia" caused scandal as it was one of the first portrayals of a prostitute presented to society which stared back at it. She is emblematic of the misperception of the nude as existing merely for the moment of voyeurism and ownership. Truly a misspelling and misinterpretation of the Turkish: Odalik (meaning concubine or slave). No one is less a slave and more a master of Time and society than one who casts a cold eye on Life and Death.