It's alive! Wasted energy turns to glowing goo in short film

In the short film 'Light,' David Parker depicts light fixtures 'bleeding' digitally rendered ooze to 'metaphorically parallel the way in which we invisibly squander our natural resources without much thought.'

Thu, Dec 15 2011 at 10:30 AM EST

Okay, I realize you’re probably already transfixed by this video of the latest holiday light show extravaganza by “Slayer Bob” but here’s another short video depicting wasted household energy in a much more quietly menacing manner.

Called “Light,” this haunting short film directed by David Parker of Sunday Paper gives wasted energy a shape and form and it’s not a particularly pretty one: glowing blobs slowly oozing, like an otherworldly oil spill, from light fixtures of all shapes and sizes that we’ve neglected to turn off. Eventually, the light blobs become so relentless that they start to drive families from their homes. Scary! Grist calls the light-oozing tableaux depicted in the film “quiet and eerie, like a Chris Van Allsburg drawing” but I’m instantly reminded (probably because I just saw it yesterday) of the first 10 minutes of Lars Van Triers’ “Melancholia” that depicts the end of the world in unnerving yet elegant slow-mo.

More on the concept of “Light” from the filmmakers themselves:

“Light” a short film directed by David Parker, initially began as a project intended to bring awareness to energy waste. Bleeding, crying lights were meant to metaphorically parallel the way in which we invisibly squander our natural resources without much thought. While the original sentiment remains, the film also grew into a poetic statement about a world run amok and the human tendency to exploit that which we hold dear.

The film was shot over a couple nights in Los Angeles as two friends drove around with a camera exploring the city’s architecture and abandoned landscapes. Keeping in this vain, the film will be projected in selected US cities in vacant storefront windows and onto walls in alleys as a moving piece of public art.