In the 2020s, James has been working on mixed media collages made with a combination of found and original sound, video, and still photos, as well as a few installation pieces, some stop-motion films, and short documentary films.

Some of them are:

    • A Place of Great Tranquility and Unsurpassed Scenic Beauty [multimedia installation]

    • Lithophones [documentary short]

    • Collected/Uncollected [documentary short]

    • GolFloGolFlog [dadaist documentary short]

    • All The Things My Parents Bought And Never Used [Internet art]

    • Tip of My Tongue [three-screen projection/sound installation]

    • "Avalon Trilogy" [three wordless sound / video poems]

These works have been or will be experienced in appropriate venues... and a web page is not one of them.

Presented below are a few fragments, some glimpses.

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Shadow is a track from the next Left Orbit Temple record, to be titled Adrift.

It is presented here as a preview.

This track and the rest of the album will eventually appear on the Left Orbit Temple bandcamp page for streaming and download.

(sound only)
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A Place of Great Tranquility and Unsurpassed Scenic Beauty is an installation piece about the effects of over-tourism on ecosystems and local cultures. It was presented in the summer of 2023, paired with a minimalist photo series called Blue Skies.

This video was made quickly as a document of the installation.

The installation also included a web component in the form of a fake gift shop. 

That web page is archived here.

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Lithophones is a documentary short about the search for "ringing rocks" that occur in only a few places in the world, and their potential use as musical instruments.  Here are some stills.


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GolFloGolFlog is a "dadaist documentary" using mostly found footage to draw parallels between environmental collapse and the unbridled stupidity of manicured lawns, golf courses, and the equipment used to maintain them. The irreverent tone moves between poignant, informative, and outrageous as free associative connections are made between destruction and punishment.


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All The Things My Parents Bought And Never Used is a spontaneous meditation on consumerism that I made while cleaning out my parents' home after they passed away. It was completed within two hours of conceiving it, and posted to a well-known Internet site as a piece of internet art. Most of my work takes a very long time to finish, I work slowly, and it was nice to just make something fast and put it out there immediately. It evaporated from the web almost as quickly.

Part of the text says:

"As someone who has spent decades becoming increasingly resistant to conspicuous consumerism, unwilling to participate any more than absolutely necessary in the destructive cycle of 'raw materials to retail goods to landfill', it is distressing to see how much stuff my parents wantonly consumed. As teens in the 1950s, they were victims of a newly energized advertising industry training them that 'to be is to buy', and that disposability is freedom.

My parents kept buying things, and a startling and depressing amount of this stuff was shoved in the basement, the garage, and the back of closets, never to even be opened, let alone used. The waste of their money is unfortunate, but this microcosm for the American addiction to shopping - and the environmental effects of this waste - is where the bigger problem lies.

I can no longer question my parents about their motivations or decisions, but perhaps we can all use their example as an impetus to explore our own purchasing decisions, and to consider our impact on local, national, and global economies, people, and our dire climate emergency. This is especially relevant in the month of December, when so many of us are making purchases, often only due to being manipulated into a feeling of obligation."

(no sound)
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Tip of My Tongue was designed for three projectors, each filling one entire wall of a square(ish) room. The film is made up of seven short spoken-word reflections on aging, loss, and nostalgia, each about 60 to 90 seconds long.


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Avalon Trilogy is a collection of three meditative short films that function as visual poems.
The films were shot on location in Norway, Sweden, Colorado, Michigan, and Illinois.
They have no plot, no story, and only fragments of voices.
Like most poetry, the meaning is up to the viewer to interpret.
Sound is 60% of the impact of this work, but these stills may suggest the general tone.