The image that stuck out to me most from this piece is the brief moment where a frog was sitting on a cell phone. There was a lot of imagery throughout this video where nature was juxtaposed to technology or some kind of human invention or advancement and I was starting to suspect this theme, but seeing the frog resting on top of the phone confirmed it for me.
The image was so interesting because the phone was open to its lock screen and you could see an iMessage notification with a preview that showed a long and friendly-looking message. While this was kind of the background, it was still clear and in focus, like the artist wanted us to pay as much attention to the phone as to the frog. It showed a portal into a person’s life: a person with friends and messages to answer and things to do. Yet here they are in nature, with a frog resting on a phone.
Phones are often a symbol of busyness, a complicated life as opposed to a simple one, and are sometimes seen as the antithesis of nature as people often distracted from nature and true life by their phones. There are a lot of images circulating of people ignoring pretty sunsets and trees to scroll on their phones. Here, nature is sitting on top of the phone, blocking the person from using the phone. We can see this person is ignoring a message, immersed in nature, captivated by the frog on their phone, and presumably taking the video of it.
In the deeper context of the entire project, I think the parallels continuously drawn between human technological advancement, nature, and naked bodies is trying to show all of the branches that stemmed off of the original explosion of life and beginning that all the myths in the story are trying to get it. Technology has reached an incredibly advanced and complex state, with a lot of different inventions stemming off of each other and adding to each other. This is similar to speciation and genetic variation and all the incredible things that have happened to the world since the beginning. The artist is showing that the creation of technology is another ripple from the splash of creation or the big bang or whatever myth/theory one chooses to believe.
I think that the image of the marbles spreading out from one point after being given the initial kick/kinetic energy by the hand is a good representation of this message. The frog on the phone moment is a beautiful way to call attention to this theme of the video.