Karen McCoy

In 1984 Robert Carl wrote WindRiver while at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. This music concerns itself with the strong winds that follow the course of the Rhone River as it flows into southern France in the vicinity of Cassis. In her work at the Camargo in 2000 McCoy was making drawings that related her body to the landscape. While there, at the same place as Carl had been earlier, she began to take an active interest in the effects of light and shadow on discrete surfaces. Elemental Encounter combines her interest in the body with her newly found interest in light phenomena. The video was filmed at sunset from nearby Cap Canaille, the highest cliff in France. Standing near the edge of the cliff McCoy bent forward and aimed her camera down, beyond her feet, at the water far below. She recorded a swath of changing light reflected on the on water’s surface as she slowly unfolded her body moving the camera upward to reach the horizon and then continued bending backwards, as far as was possible, as the camera recorded the sky. Later, this footage was fitted to the length of Carl’s composition, WindRiver. Elemental Encounter precedes the Light and Shadow Series in her video work and is the first collaborative piece mccoycarl made together.