Strange Space

1992, 3:46 min, color, sound

This collaborative work, created specifically for the 1992 Day Without Art/AIDS Awareness Day, addresses what Thornton terms "the relationship between the medicalization of the body and the personal." While the actor Ron Vawter reads aloud from a poem by Rilke, a doctor is heard discussing Vawter's medical condition. Medical photographs of internal organs and images of the moon's surface create landscapes of inner and outer space. This haunting rumination suggests the disparity between medical interpretations and personal experiences of physicality and mortality.

Producer: Leslie Thornton, Ron Vawter. Cinematographer/Editor: Leslie Thornton. Reading/Performance: Ron Vawter. Texts: Fragment of a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.