ELLEN RINGSTAD

“It has always been the business of the great seers (known to India as ‘rishis,’ in biblical terms as “prophets,” to primitive folk as ‘shamans,’ and in our own day as ‘poets’ and ‘artists’) to perform the work of the first and second functions of a mythology by recognizing through the veil of nature, as viewed in the science of their times, the radiance, terrible yet gentle, of the dark, unspeakable light beyond, and through their words and images to reveal the sense of the vast silence that is the ground of us all and of all beings.”

- Joseph Campbell in “The Historical Atlas of World Mythology, Digital Edition: Prologue.” Joseph Campbell Foundation. iBooks.

Repress / Regress belongs to a series of short, hypnotic video montages entitled Quagmire, all dealing with the paradox of motion and standstill simultaneously - such as walking backwards on a moving walkway.
 

The words "repress" and "Regress" zoom in and out alternately, exposing two characters in a chameleon-like process of masking and unmasking, of veiling and unveiling.