Homecoming
Projected 4k Video (Color, Sound)
Dimensions Varzzzziable
16 min 17 sec, 2024
Written and Directed by Mark Dorf
Produced by Electronic Image
Virtual Reality Child played by Zoe Birdie CaraDonna
Host played by Dr. Paul CaraDonna
Voice #1: Mark Dorf
Voice #2: Cassandra Croft
Z. Birdie: Mark Dorf
Character Animation by Derek G. Larson
Original Score by Randall Dunn
Featuring:
Charmaine Lee
Max Alper
Luke Bergman
KJ Sawka
Additional Music by Max Alper
“AUTOMATON”
Written by Arjan Miranda / Max Alper
Musical Creative Direction: Randall Dunn
Score Mixed by Randall Dunn and Ben Greenberg
Music Editor: Arjan Miranda
Score and Sound Design Produced by Randall Dunn
Mixed and Recorded at Circular Ruin Studio
Ecological Advisors:
Dr. Paul CaraDonna
Dr. Amy Iler
Dr. Jane Ogilvie
Dr. Will Petry
Supported by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory and National Science Foundation
As a cinematic poem, Homecoming mirrors the Odyssean homeward journey, presenting a counterpoint: the contemporary longing for ‘home’ is complicated by modern anxieties, represented in relentless visual torrents. Homecoming turns its gaze to distortions within our compromised understanding of a relational reality—ecological, emotional, and sociological. it shifts our attention to the forces driving these perceptual contortions: both algorithmic design and an unprecedented influx of media.
Homecoming reflects a culture confused about its notion of home, lost in a manic recollection that renders itself inert. Through a turbulent edit, the film urges a reconsideration of what it means to belong in a time—and to a planet—where ‘home’ feels increasingly intangible. Here, the journey is no longer an Odyssean return to a place or a psychological state, but a reckoning with the futility of longing for impressions of home that may have only ever been mirages. Both destabilizing and destabilized, Homecoming interrogates the expectations imposed by these uncertain memories, confronting the impossibility of returning to a home that no longer exists—or perhaps never did.
Homecoming (Video Stills), 2024