Video work — sonic duration

Playlist I records a set of songs that function as emotional anchors within the Ezra system. Rather than presenting the music itself, the work documents the act of sustaining a sonic environment through repetition.

The piece consists of five screen recordings captured directly from the artist’s iPhone while playing songs through the Apple Music interface. Each recording shows a different track beginning, looping, and restarting through the tactile gestures used to maintain playback.

The recordings were originally captured continuously for nearly fifteen minutes and later condensed into a nine-minute sequence. Within this interval each track loops multiple times, producing a layered rhythm of repetition and interruption.

Rather than editing away the gestures that control the music, the video preserves them. Touches, pauses, and restarts remain visible, documenting the behavior required to sustain a sonic state rather than presenting a finished playlist.

The five songs form Playlist I, a canonical grouping of tracks the artist repeatedly returns to when seeking emotional stability or grounding.

The viewer is invited, through the opening data frame, to play and loop the songs independently while watching the video. Sound in this work is not illustrative. It functions as a structural condition through which duration and attention stabilize.

As the sequence progresses, each screen recording reaches the end of its capture and disappears from the frame — sometimes mid-song, sometimes between loops. The composition gradually dissolves until the final recording vanishes and the screen turns black.

After a brief pause, the video begins again.

The songs return.

The system resets.

Within the broader Ezra system, Playlist I can be understood as a visual encoding of sonic duration — a record of how music is used to regulate emotional state and maintain continuity through repetition.

The songs remain constant.

The interface records the act of return.

Meaning emerges through repetition, attention, and time.

Credits

Recorded by Seth Dager

Edited by Seth Dager