Watch Refuses (2006) Official Trailer

Refuses began as a visual extension of Carolyn Bergdahl's poem Fuses (after Carolee Schneemann). Just as Bergdhl's poem speaks to Schneemann's taboo-shattering 1964-66 film, Donegan's Refuses is a direct response to the poem. Using Bergdahl's poem as a template, Donegan creates a structured visual language that leans as much on formal rules as it does on content. In Donegan's silent collage of seemingly disparate images culled from Internet searches and home video footage, each new clip directly corresponds to a word in the original Bergdahl poem; the apparent stream of consciousness is governed by a rigorous set of rules.