Ritual Use
By Ross McKean
FilmRitual Use explores our limited understanding of ancient belief systems and the objects connected to them. By using thermal imaging, body heat becomes a visualisation of superstition, and a synecdoche for belief systems as a whole. The pendant in the film was cast in bronze and echoes objects found in museums under labels such as “ritual use,” whose values were originally defined functionally rather than materially, while that information has been lost to time.