Song of the Firefly is a visual poem that employs the cameraless photogram technique, which I first explored in my 2001 film titled Light Magic. Song of the Firefly aims to engender the feeling of being transported to an open field on a warm summer night where the luminous dance of the fireflies can be experienced. The exuberant display of light created by the fireflies, which illuminates different portions of the field, also reveals fragments of the space in which we are contained, leaving us always waiting in anticipation to see more, just like in cinema. The appeal of the illuminated screen, onto which we project our most secret fantasies and desires, echoes the open field at night where the sexual energy is transformed into light by these tiny insects. The single discrete flashes and the continuous glow are a form of communication between the male and the female fireflies during the mating period where the female fireflies “respond preferentially to males that possess these ‘sexy’ signal components” (Branham and Greenfield 1996, Flashing males win mate success. Nature 381:745 746). The photogram images in this film were created using only plants, which I gathered in one of Toronto's many parks.
