For the Time Being

A video letter to artist Nancy Holt, in homage to a shared interest in terminal lakes, framed views, monuments and time.  Filmed on and around the Great Salt Lake, Mono Lake and Meteor Crater.

The overlapping dot formations are taken from the four constellations Holt bored into Sun Tunnels (1976).  The film’s title is taken from a piece she wrote for Robert Smithson in 1978. 

For the time being, in the interim, in the course of time, from day to day, from hour to hour, until, in due time, and in the fullness of time, time endures, goes on, remains, persists, lasts, goes by, elapses, passes, flows, rolls on, flies, slips, slides, and glides by.

Made for “The letters that weren’t and also are,” by invitation of Garbiñe Ortega and Matías Piñeiro.

TLEP (Terminal Lake Exploration Platform):  Steve Badgett & Chris Taylor

“Deborah Stratman, in her contemplative missive to Nancy Holt situated in and around the Great Salt Lake, intimates the power but also the limits of cinema in the face of history. Her salutation – “For the time being…In the interim…In the course of time…From day to day” implicitly asks: What more can cinema be than a monument to the provisional? And wasn’t that also the point of all the sublime toiling Holt and Smithson did out in the desert?” 

-Jay Kuehner,  Senses of Cinema