Death in Geological Time

Death in Geological Time is a short film work which touches upon themes of death, time and authenticity relative to the current geological epoch, the Anthropocene. The film is set at LifeGem Laboratories - a manufacturer of synthetic diamonds using cremated human ashes as a means of creating "a unique memorial to your loved one".

The work takes the form of a pseudo advertisement, or a slow and languid geological horror which reveals industrial ingenuity at its most absurd. The material substance of the film - the dust of the human - is subjected to the diamond press; an act which not only bypasses the ‘natural’ temporality of geological time, but also bypasses the subject’s ‘natural’ progression towards the fossil record. The messy, viscous, reality of bodily corporeality is absent in both the subject and object of the work. Instead it is eradicated, processed and reified in the most coveted of stones – a diamond, humanity preserved in the most desirable of lithic forms.

  • Amanda Rice
    Director
  • Amanda Rice
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 32 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 8, 2018
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    DIGITAL
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • The Wrong Biennale (Goingaway.Tv)
    London
    United Kingdom
    November 1, 2019
  • Carlow Visual Festival (Dearly Beloved)
    Carlow
    Ireland
    June 4, 2019
    Irish Premier
    Awarded: Hotron-Eigse Graduate Prize
  • Open Film Outpost Gallery
    Norwich
    United Kingdom
    March 30, 2019
  • Slade MA Show
    London
    United Kingdom
    June 7, 2018
    London
    Edward Allington Memorial Prize
  • Docs Ireland Film Festival
    Belfast
    United Kingdom
    November 12, 2020
  • Aalto University, No One Can Embargo the Sun
    Helsinki
    Finland
    December 1, 2020
Director Biography - Amanda Rice

Amanda Rice (b. 1985, Ireland) is a recent graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art MA programme, with distinction. Upon graduating she was awarded the inaugural Edward Allington Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the lmacantar Studio Award. She has won the Éigse-Hotron Graduate prize presented by Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Ireland and the Next Generation Bursary awarded by the Arts Council of Ireland for 2020. She has exhibited at Charlton Gallery (London); University College London Art Museum; Still the Barbarians, Eva International Biennial, curated by Koyo Kouoh (Ireland); Carnage Visors, Rua Red (Dublin); Flux Factory (New York) and Eastlink Gallery (Shanghai).

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I’m primarily interested in how geological material is exchanged and extended in the world, for example, how rock, mineral, or other lithic materials, generated outside of human time scales as part of geologic processes some hundreds of millions of years ago, come to participate in a variety of human constructed systems and interactions. These interests extend to how geological material can become entangled with processes of manufacturing, human labour, global trade, circulations of capitalism to more subjective notions of value and myth bestowed upon artefacts and other lithic things.