Daniel Jewesbury : Temple of Hercules

Temple of Hercules, work in progress. Rough edit.
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This is a rough, illustrative edit of the project Temple of Hercules. It is in standard definition and the footage is ungraded.

The footage for Temple of Hercules was shot during a residency in Celje, Slovenia in 2009. Whereas in 10 Monologues I used unedited 30 metre rolls of film, for this film I worked with layering and montage, focusing on the contrast between the regular, repeated geometric forms of the city, and natural forms in the countryside just outside: flowers and fruit, paths through long grass. On the hills above the city, these forms came together in a ruined Roman temple.

I subsequently wrote the voiceover and recorded it in a number of acoustic environments in Belfast. It is spoken here by artist Helen Sharp.

The original film was accompanied just with the ambient soundtrack recorded in Celje and the voiceover. In 2015, I added processed sound by Stuart Watson.

In 2026, a full performance of the piece is being presented, from a new 2K transfer of the original 16mm negative. It is included as a programme event in connection with my Death of Venus solo exhibition at Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg, in which all the elements are combined live: the video clips are arranged as loops, in sequences that are cued and mixed live using VJ software (as I did for I Burn For You, and also for another recent project, Sånger från Svartsten, a collaboration with Klezmer trio Kv. Arken and composer Mats Edén), the voiceover is spoken by actor Kristina Brändén Whitaker, and a live musical accompaniment is performed by artist and musician Jesper Norda. The musical accompaniment uses the chord structure of Arvo Pärt’s Fratres as a starting point.

In the edit shown here, the video loop is 10 minutes in length.