Making post maternal woman visible, this CD-ROM creates a metaphor for an aging woman by linking visuals of decay in nature. The first section of the CD-ROM is comprised of a series of 3 transformations. A video frame of a weathered log and a video frame of a close-up of the 70 year old actress, Sidney, lying nude on a beach are embossed together so that one turns into the other. The emboss software works on the higher frequencies found around lines, so calculations on the imagery parallel the effects of aging on the surfaces of skin and nature. The lines of age become the linking points between the logs and the woman. In one series the cross section of a log showing the rings of age are embossed around the woman's ear. The process of this transmutation - of having one image inform the presentation of the other - provides a metaphor for my personal exploration of the transition between life and death in this piece.
The rest of the CD ROM takes the user into the life of a woman living on a remote island along the West Coast. The name of her cabin is "Whispering Pines". The pine trees 'whisper'. Nature communicates. Through this piece we can share her experience of day to day life. There is a narrative - a letter - around which the scenario of the slice of life that we have in this short CD-ROM is structured.