Caleb Cain Marcus: A Brief Movement After Death

A brief movement after death by Caleb Cain Marcus explores the release of energy from the body into the universe when we die. The images were taken along the coasts of New York and California and contain sky and ocean—immense bodies of space that we can lose ourselves in; becoming part of their vastness. The inspiration for the book came to the photographer from a personal experience. With the birth of his daughter, his death suddenly felt very near. His childhood questions about what happens when we die resurfaced and Marcus began to think about how to visually represent what occurs after death. The work represents the starting point of his new practice that juxtaposes digital and hand-applied mediums to create a hybrid surface, color and edge that challenges the medium of a photograph and the way in which it is seen, understood and felt. With the motion of a pendulum the grease pencil is swung by a string to make tightly grouped marks that reference the finite quantity of time in a lifespan and that move across the paper as if in a formation of light leaving the earth.