Under the mentorship of Scott Thorpe, I embarked on a months-long design exercise to explore what possibilities could emerge from studying one everyday item. Discovering new ways of working, iterating through walls and lulls, and tenacious perseverance led to Birth of Dirt, a short film focused on medium transposition to bring to life a compelling narrative. Watch above.
Music: Ohneohtrix Point Never: Americans
Someone asked me once:
“Where does all the dirt come from?”
I said:
I guess you’ve gotta start at the big bang
When a whole bunch of starstuff
Was flung out across the expanding universe
And the stuff congealed and cooked
and turned into rock
And then collapsed into planets
And then got drowned in water
And the sun hit that water
in just the right way
And then things started to grow
The lichens were first,
clinging to the rocks for survival
And when they died
they became the first dirt
Eventually, trees grew from that dirt
And when the trees died
they became more dirt
Then a whole bunch of other things grew
And then died
and also turned into dirt
So, just like everything else that’s ever lived,
Maybe one day
you’ll be dirt too
