Metanoia

view demo

2018
video & sound
duration: 7 min

starring: Diana Rigg

exhibited:
The Visitors, Morley Gallery, London, 2021

© acknowledgements:
The Avengers: The House That Jack Built (1966) 
Word On A Wing (David Bowie) 
Heroes (David Bowie) 


Metanoia is one of two distinct terms in the New Testament that are both translated into English as ‘repentance’: in the original Greek, metamelomai suggests sorrowful regret, whilst metanoia implies the action of a change of mind leading to a change of life.

In classical Greek culture, metanoia referred to a rhetorical device, but was also personified as an avenging figure who accompanies Kairos, the god of opportune time, as ‘the goddess who exacts punishment for what has and has not been done’

David Bowie’s Word on a Wing was written at the height of his drug addiction, whilst filming The Man Who Fell to Earth: “There were days of such psychological terror when making the Roeg film that I nearly started to approach my reborn, born again thing. It was the first time I’d really seriously thought about Christ and God in any depth, and ‘Word on a Wing’ was a protection. It did come as a complete revolt against elements that I found in the film. The passion in the song was genuine… something I needed to produce from within myself to safeguard myself against some of the situations I felt were happening on the film set.”