Myth Labs

Martha Colburn - 2008, 7:30, DVcam, Netherlands/USA

'Myth Labs' interweaves Puritan visions, folk art, religious allegories and victims of the current Methamphetamine epidemic. It is a film about fear, paranoia, faith and loss of faith and salvation.

'Myth labs' takes place in the American frontier and wilderness. Similarly to Meth addicts in rural America, for the Puritans the wilderness represented a place of their damnation and their ultimate resurrection synonymously. Through blending these two times in American history, Colburn attempts to illuminate the idea that the lure of this drug for contemporary rural inhabitants is rooted in the earliest consciousness-forming experiences of the settler: a state of spiritual and physical emergency. Overly fervent faith and addiction alike, can change one from mere mortal to Superman to scarecrow.

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009 (world premiere), De Hallen Haarlem 2009 (solo exposition), International Film Festival Breda 2009, Courtisane Festival Gent 2009, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück 2009

Martha Colburn (Baltimore, 1971) started out scratching and re-editing found footage 16mm educational films. She studied at the Institute College of Art in Baltimore and from 2000, she attended the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Colburn has worked since 1995 on Super8.