*BLOW OUT* – The smell of a match after it’s struck. Blowing out a candle to smell it again, [the image of a birthday cake]. Lighting one after another. It smells like victory. I’m not a pyromaniac, I promise.
(…) or to catch sight of a teardrop of tin suspiciously sliding away, anticipating those two-pieced arms affectionately embracing a cone-shaped torso. No, the teardrop couldn’t take the heat of the embrace. It had to slide off, creating an eerie sound caused by their breaking, concrete blocks.
*STRIKE MATCH* *LIGHT CANDLE*
The teardrop that slided suspiciously ended up in a stranger’s hand.
A warm hand.
Unable to melt it further.
Instant relief.
[the image of a birthday cake in a kitchen]
Birthday cakes are being lit every day.
After one year another one will be lit again, yet, for the same person […a representation]
And then again. again, again and again, until that one year.
The merrymaker will inhale some sulfate and exhale it as smoke. Their exhalation will spread cloudy, nearly-transparent letters throughout the entire kitchen. They form kind words, but the family is too occupied cheering the merrymaker to notice. Except for one person, as they happen to trace the path of a fly, they’ll catch a glimpse of just one letter, an A or B or C or D or E or F or G or H or I or J or K or L or M or N or O or P or Q or R or S or T or U or V or W or X or Y or Z, before the word dissolves as a whole.
They’ll think it was their imagination,
and after a couple of birthday cakes they’ve forgotten about it.
I can’t help but wonder, what are the thoughts of a being whose tears are made of golden metal?
Intrigued by the time-based element of video, Tessa Langeveld creates moments that slowly unfold as a fragmentary narrative – the act of making is not in the choice of the subject, but in the choice of the meaningful moment. Langeveld graduated from AKI (Enschede) in 2020.
