Little Labors

iPhone footage

iPhone footage of the puma has the unfortunate quality of making it seem as if the puma has passed away and the watcher, me, is condemned to replaying the same scene again and again and again. The more banal the scene, the more intense this effect. Footage of her crawling across a room to pick up a toy skateboard and then eat a piece of strawberry — a heartrending seven-second loop. I imagine this has to do with some sort of intensified sensation of time passing, brought about by being in touch with the illusion of time standing still. Or with boredom, or hostility, or love. But I discover that the affective qualities of loops are different for the puma. When she watches the same footage again and again and again she looks like someone who has been given access to a holy book and is not afraid of the messages it bears.