Cats Garden / Birds

Elam provides a small, voyeuristic case study of animal behavior in “Cat Garden / Birds.” Via binary structure, the film begins swiveling about (what appears to be) Elam’s Logan Square backyard inhabited by two black cats salient to her work. Initially out of focus, the cats loiter, drenched in saturated colors. Shedding ambiguity, Elam puts the cats in focus, but only briefly before flaring out the image, transitioning to survey a posse of birds hopping about a bird feeder (visual markers indicate a different location [potentially Memphremago, VT, a locale visited in other portions of Elam’s work]). The birds fraternize, perch, and munch as the camera interweaves focus from indivudals to the group.