An example of what Reeves terms “video poetics,” layered images of a deserted village in the Spanish countryside play counterpoint to poetry by Cesar Vallejo and Pablo Neruda. Using slick production techniques, Reeves marks the passing of time and human presence with a video transparency effect. What we see is a ghost of what was. Reeves’s precise editing makes for an extraordinarily fluid tape, as images seem to fly through the landscape, through past, present and future.
Dan Reeves has worked in sculpture, film, video, and installation since 1970. His videos focus on personal, political, and spiritual themes, from socially condoned violence to the divine nature of existence. Since 1982 Reeves's work has concentrated on developing a video poetics and exploring personal transformation and responsibility. Reeves’s Buddhist convictions shape not only his content, but direct his commitment to “revitalizing the sacred in art"—making work of universal significance and understanding of the human condition. A remarkable combination of traditional documentary and personnal narrative, his autobiographical tape Smothering Dreams deals with the myths and realities of war through his experience in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.