Otter Space: Kaleidoscopic Memory

Two years ago today my husband Austin and I were waiting for him to be released from the hospital.

It was a surreal time in our lives. We had just gotten married three days before his surgery. We joked that we honeymooned at Emory, and the nurses in our unit knew us as the newlyweds.

Austin had a craniotomy to remove a tangle of blood vessels deep in his brain, the large mass had caused a stroke a few months earlier. After a few days in the hospital he was so ready to go home, he needed something to distract him from the waiting. I kept my camera on hand during our stay so I could explore the gardens around Emory while he slept during the day.

I asked him about trying to get some footage for this project on our last day there, and he was all about it. Kaleidoscopic Memory is a song about loss, and though he wrote it years before, we both felt the theme of the song fit the circumstances.

Austin did a stellar job with his performance, just a few days after his surgery.

Filming on the fly was so much fun.

We used the food tray as a dolly, and played the song from my laptop so he could sing along. We walked the halls because the nurses wanted him to.

It was a long road to recovery, but we are so happy to say Austin is doing great 2 years out!

I filmed all of the liquid art at home and I found a way to incorporate Austin’s MRI scans.

I spent a lot of time playing with the footage during my chemo infusions at the same hospital a year later, it was a fantastic distraction for both of us. I have really enjoyed putting it all together, and Austin’s had a front row seat to the process.

At long last, we are so excited to present the finished video for Kaleidoscopic Memory!

Get the full Otter Space album on bandcamp

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