Titles by Tom Kalin

Some Desperate Crime on my Head

2003, 2:57 min, color, sound

In a series of short pieces drawn from his ongoing feature film project Behold Goliath, Kalin further develops the method of on-screen, appropriated, literary texts that he employed in Third Known Nest. The title of the series is a reference to the stories of writer and critic Alfred Chester (1928-1971), quotations from whom feature prominently in these short but densely edited montages. Chester's phrases are recited by computer voice synthesizers, and are also manipulated graphically amidst a palimpsest of animated drawings and video images.

Text from Alfred Chester's The Foot provides Some Desperate Crime On my Head with its central concern: wigs, hats, and public appearance. The intimacy of the subject matter is compounded by Brian Eno's melancholy background music, at the same time that it is complicated by Kalin's use of computer-synthesized voiceover.

Text: Alfred Chester, "The Fool." Music: Eno, Moebius, Roedelius, Luftschloss. Computer voices: Agnes, Bruce, Stephan, Victoria.