An experimental film that showcases the role of the viewer in creating videopoetry. As Iowa City-based visual artist Sandra Louise Dyas explains in the Vimeo description, ‘”fuze” is a collaborative video created for Homegrown Stories that relies on chance and serendipity. LeAnn Erickson (video) and I (sound) worked separately, only knowing the length of the piece and its title.’

Homegrown Stories has been nurturing creative collaborations for many years.  This year we were interested in creating a more hands-on collaborative project among our loyal and talented collaborators. We invited sound and image artists who have contributed great work in the past to take part in this year’s Homegrown Stories theme – The Serendipity Project.

Twelve individuals were formed into six collaborative pairs. The pair of artists selected a title for their video piece and a designated length. They then worked separately with one collaborator creating a soundtrack inspired by the title and the other creating a silent image track.  At a designated time, these two separate tracks were combined.

Using collage, organic image, music as sound, and a variety of structural schemes, these collaborative videos reveal the random magic of Serendipity.

The Serendipity Project 2024

Other videos for the project that don’t include text in their soundtracks are still well worth watching, but the magic here lies in just how well elements of the text do complement the imagery, culminating in a shot of a horseshoe crab which, as an environmentalist knowing something of the plight of horseshoe crabs, I found quite moving.

We’ve shared Dyas’ work here before: her 2016 videopoem River Étude. LeAnn Erickson, a professor of film and video production at Temple University in Philadelphia, is new to Moving Poems. Here’s her website.