The Prisoner and the Spirit-16mm Film Revisited
- Dr Lila Moore, All Rights Reserved
- Apr 3
- 1 min read
Traps – The Prisoner and the Spirit (1989)
16mm film by Lila Moore
A ritual of matter and spirit, articulated through the material language of 16mm film.
A woman manifests the spirit.
A man is held within the net—caught between worlds.
The fish is found. The table is shared.
A threshold opens—the prisoner glimpses the metaphysical.
The spirit ascends.
The work unfolds beyond narrative, operating as a filmic rite in which image, gesture, and material process converge. Film is treated simultaneously as raw substance and as a medium of transcendence—an early exploration of what would later develop into a sustained practice of screen-based choreography and technoetic work.
Originally extended into live performance, the piece brought the body into direct dialogue with projection, situating the screen as an active site of encounter rather than representation.
Shot in Covent Garden and a London scrapyard.
Edited at Four Corners, London.
Presented at The Window, Central Saint Martins—a glass interface between artwork and the flow of the street.
An early articulation of the screen as a space of consciousness:a threshold where matter and spirit, body and image, converge.
Comments