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A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

ON SCREEN: Cat Listening to Music

1988. Directed by Chris Marker. Runtime: 3 minutes.

Marker fans are familiar with the cartoon representation of Guillaume-en-Egypte, Marker’s beloved pet cat, which has become the reclusive filmmaker’s alter ego. In this charming short, Marker reveals the real-life Guillaume, stretched out lazily in the filmmaker’s apartment, as he listens to the lilting rhythms of a piano sonata by Federico Mompou.

ON SCREEN: Owl is an Owl is an Owl

1990. Directed by Chris Marker. Runtime: 3 minutes.

A visit to an aviary yields a rhythmically edited series of close-ups of the rapidly rotating or intently staring feathered heads of a colorful variety of owls, accompanied by an ambient electronic soundtrack. 

MUSIC BY: Spencer Doran (of Visible Cloaks)

Spencer Doran is a composer, sound designer and researcher working across the disparate-but-adjacent fields of abstract electronic music, game audio design and environmental music studies. As half of Visible Cloaks, the “humanely futuristic” duo with Ryan Carlile, Doran co-helmed albums such as Reassemblage (2017), Lex (2017) and, in collaboration with Yoshio Ojima and Satsuki Shibano, serenitatem (2019), developing a form of amorphous, omni-directional digital composition intended to be appreciated in both active and passive listening space. As a researcher, he co-runs the Empire of Signs imprint with Maxwell August Croy (known for reigniting global interest in environmental music pioneers like Hiroshi Yoshimura) and compiled/annotated the compilation Kankyo Ongaku for Light in the Attic Records. 2023 saw the arrival of his audio direction and interactive score for the Playstation 5 title SEASON: A letter to the future. His work as both composer and researcher deals with concepts like human/digital hybridity, environmental sound design, east/west feedback loops of artistic influence and the glistening sheen of the hyperreal. (photo credit: Jonathan Sielaff)

ON STAGE: Midori Hirose

Midori Hirose is a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, OR. Her work explores themes of memory, transformation, and connection through sculpture, installation, and storytelling. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara and Disjecta Contemporary Art Center. Hirose’s work has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, The Lumber Room, and East/West Project in Berlin.

ON STAGE: Matt Carlson

Matt Carlson is a composer, synthesist, and pianist. He is known for his work as Golden Retriever with Jonathan Sielaff, and for records on Shelter Press, Thrill Jockey, NNA Tapes, Root Strata, and DRAFT. His work is influenced by the American Experimental tradition of composers, minimalism of the rhythmic and non-rhythmic varieties, electronic high abstraction, and jazz. He holds a degree in music composition from Cornish College of the Arts where he studied with Jarrad Powell. He is interested in music’s capacity to articulate ideas that cannot be translated into another form or medium. (photo credit: Jonathan Sielaff)

THE BOOK: Le Dépays by Chris Marker, Published by Film Desk Books, 2024

This is the first English-language edition of Chris Marker’s 1982 photo-essay, Le Dépays. Lovingly adapted from the original design, it features Marker’s own translation astride some of his most exquisite, yet rarely seen, black-and-white photography. Realized over the same years as its film companion, Sans Soleil, the book traces similar themes—cats and owls and Japan—but without ever leaving Golden-Gai for Guinea-Bissau. Musing among department store maneki-neko and dreamers on the metro, wandering between Tokyo and no-place at all, this is nevertheless a unique glimpse of Marker feeling very much himself and quite at home; that is, delightfully disoriented.