THE 40-DAY SOLILOQUY

This is a personal video project made in 1997, when I was teaching myself how to shoot and edit digital video on a very early desktop system. The concept was to perform Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy one line at a time over the course of forty days. The 8-minute video consists of the soliloquy itself, which rips pretty fast over two minutes, followed by credits, followed by a longer section of outtakes, which helps set some of the contexts of the shots.

There were some events in my life in that period that corresponded to specific lines, so it was fun to incorporate them. For example, at the time this was made I was working full-time at IDEO, but was also still showing my artwork through three galleries; The Works Gallery in Los Angeles, Lucy Berman Gallery in Palo Alto, and Deanna Izen Miller gallery in Venice (CA). Sadly, the later had to close its doors due to unforeseen circumstances. To me, this very much felt like “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as it was very sad that they had to close, but it was a wonderful fortune for a young artist such as me to be a part of that stable. Upon hearing the news, I flew down to Venice for the closing night celebration, and recorded the line on the street outside with the gallery director as my tango partner.

Another example was for the line, “and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” I had been planning on getting a pair of small tattoos before this project started, and when I considered what to do about that particular line it was too perfect of a description of a tattoo to pass up; ergo I had the tattoo done with my assistant shooting the process while I delivered the line (and my subsequent recovery from fainting during the procedure).

I had a wonderful group of friends who helped in the project, as well as some very generous permissions from certain organization who allowed me to shoot on their premises. Further descriptions of the individual shots will follow in the near future.