I first found my way to Moyra Davey’s Instagram feed (@moyradavey) on April 9, 2020. I remember the date because it marks a friend’s birthday, plus it was the start of the pandemic and the first days of lockdown in Los Angeles; blithely scrolling while waiting—waiting for what?—seemed appropriate. But the video frame I saw revved my lazy scroll into a fevered loop, the phone held at arm’s length. Onscreen, a snake whips across the ground, toward the person holding the camera; the camera keeps tracking the snake in a vertiginous tilt downward, almost somersaulting, barely keeping up with the twisting line of the writhing body until it is finally out of sight, the snake now possibly tangled around the photographer’s feet, surely winding up her leg. But then the video loops, beginning again, and the snake is there, at a safe distance. For a moment.
Davey’s Instagram...
University of California Press