soundtracks. The project is rife with anatomical allusions to the position of the reproductive organs during the embryonic process of sexual differentiation: Cremaster 1 represents the most "ascended" or undifferentiated state, Cremaster 5 the most "descended" or differentiated. The cycle repeatedly returns to those moments during early sexual development in which the outcome of the process is still unknown. In Barney's metaphoric universe, these moments represent a condition of pure potentiality. As the cycle evolved over eight years, Barney looked beyond biology as a way to explore the creation of form, employing narrative models from other realms, such as biography, mythology, and geology. The photographs, drawings, and sculptures radiate outward from the narrative core of each film installment. Barney's photographs—framed in plastic and often arranged in diptychs and triptychs that distill moments from the plot—often emulate classical portraiture. His graphite and petroleum jelly drawings represent key aspects of the project's conceptual framework. River of Fundament (2006–2014) River of Fundament takes the form of a three-act opera and is loosely based on Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry. Barney replaced the human body with the body of the 1967 Chrysler Imperial that was the central motif from his earlier film Cremaster 3. The film’s central scene is an abstraction of Mailer’s wake, set in a replica of the late author’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights and featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paul Giamatti, Elaine Stritch, Ellen Burstyn, Peter Donald Badalamenti II, Joan La Barbara, and jazz percussionist Milford Graves. Redoubt (2018–2021) Barney began producing a new two-hour film, Redoubt, in 2017, which premiered in March 2019. It is set in the Sawtooth Range of Idaho, United States, and uses multiple layers of myths, including the myth of Diana and Actaeon, as well as references to the controversial reintroduction of wolves into the Sawtooth Mountains and metallurgy, to discuss "humanity's place in the natural world". The Yale University Art Gallery debuted Redoubt on March 1, 2019, alongside an exhibition of large bronze and brass sculptures and electroplated engravings inspired by the film. The show traveled afterward to UCCA Beijing (2019-2020), then Hayward Gallery in London (2020- 2021). Performance Barney has explored live