Ziggurat
2010, 20 minutes, 16mm hand-processed film
This film could be described as a metaphysical documentary, depicting a terrain beyond the physical. It was shot in two locations in Colorado’s remote San Luis Valley: a ziggurat (built by Queen Noor of Jordan) and a nearby charnel ground (which is the only open-air cremation site in the USA). Duke decided to make this film after these locations appeared to him in a reoccurring dream.
Ziggurat was shot on 16mm film using a homemade, hand-cranked pinhole camera. The pinhole provides the perfect lens for capturing these spiritually charged locations; seeing to convey something beyond the purely physical, it presents a view that is intensely subjective, intimate, and ghostly… like images in dreams or memory.
Special thanks to: Caroline Hinkley; Robert Schaller and the Handmade Film Institute; Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio; and the Museum of Jurassic Technology for helping to make this project possible.
