In the film Short study on the nature of things a female narrator recorded to tape tells stories remembered from her childhood; how she shaped her personal understanding of the world, space and time. The narrative is interwoven with axioms from Heraclitus and accompanies a series of images of instruments of measurement and representation of light and time, and others including the melting of a glacier and the incorrupt body of St Bernadette of Lourdes. The title is a direct reference to Lucretius Latin poem De Rerum Natura: on the nature of things.