Archive Page 2
In this text I’m writing about the mental vacuum of Summer: (two u’s, two m’s). I’ve noticed that where I write like a demon in Winter, I draw like a crazy person in Summer. Summer is about shapes, lines, curves, corners, much more than words, phrases, and dense texts, (as is Winter). I speak for myself, of course. Though I suspect I am not alone. Out with The Anthropologists recently, several of us observed that Summer-time shock at trying to read what authors we’d come to love through the Winter (not to mention what we ourselves had written). In this particular insert, I begin by noting that less concentrated mental energy of Spring, and, in resistance, I begin to begin to make plans (thanks to Max Forte’s suggestion) for an abstract proposal to the aptly titled online: Forum for Qualitative Science Research. I have since reviewed their project time-line, and it is reassuringly loose. Perhaps it isn’t the temperature, but the completion of year long projects, and coming denouement. The Dychtwald text I refer to is Bodymind, one of those new age pseudo science self-help books I love (akin to science fiction and very good Summer reading).
This is my attempt to conceptualize the video for this project. However, my work with video is as intuitive and spontaneous as my writing. The raw media is derived from one-hour writing blitzes. (Phil says I may be afflicted with “graphology”:). For the first part of each page the viewer can follow along with my slowly writing hand, but eventually the text is obscured by itself and the scene speeds. Initially inspired by my ma’s knitting, I yearned for consistent lettering. I had dreams about Agnes Martin. However, after writing for several hours my diligence wore out and I began to write, perhaps as Riopelle might. Much of the content ruminates over questions of meaning, legibility, creative processes. I.E. “Is it important that this mean?”, “What do we risk losing when we equate writing with creativity; with art; with thought itself?”, “Do you dream in French?”, as well as technological concerns: “Should the text be legible in the projection?”. Another object contemplated at length is time.
Thanks to all who have agreed to participate in Formal Culture. The deadline for forms has been extended — to March 1 — though I have been receiving completed questionnaires and surveys since February 1. Thank you, again!
For now, they are being kept in a safe place. I haven’t opened the envelopes, or even read the completed questionnaires. You can call it a bit of delayed gratification, but I do look forward to reading through everything in early March. They will be integral to the final installation.
This week is an important week for the project: I’ll spend time video editing, and in preparation for the mid-term review February 8.
Following that, I’ll need to be away from this blog, in order to shift focus: to automatic writing, and to sketches for the final installation — I may take-up origami, calligraphy, sign language, deep sea diving, or some such thing. (Jokes aside, I’ll also need to concentrate some energy into my anthropology thesis…and I have a feeling a ‘breather’ will be due. Maybe I’ll go to New York? It’s RESEARCH!)
Om Shanti bebe
This project is fun and interesting. Today, it did not start out that way. Indeed, I feel all in Montreal are fighting a mean case of February blahs — though, maybe just me.
Anyway: This project is fun and interesting! Paul was kind enough to put a few halogens in the gallery where Alain Benoit’s Sculpture Hippothétique plays during business hours. My initial aim was to “re-create” the video shot a few weeks ago — to try things in a different context, with different constraints. However, in trying to “re-create” what is passed, I lost time. The breakthrough came when I trashed all previous plans/preconceived notions, and began to appreciate the possibilities of the new space.
It was nearly five o’clock by the time we had cued the shot perfectly: when aligned simultaneously the video will create the illusion of me – writing with myself, head to head. See Toronto-based artist: Janeita Eyre (“Sisters”, above)…and mix with more banal stuff, like Bill Viola, Andy Warhol. I look forward to jumping into it first thing tomorrow morning.
Paul made a crack about the possible “correspondences”. I think it might just work!
Questionnaires and Surveys: Release
Published January 17, 2007 ethnography , observed , paper Leave a Comment
I began distributing the Questionnaires and Surveys this week. So far only two people have declined participation — a choice I totally understand and respect.
Otherwise, I’m excited about the possible responses. I have no plans for the completed forms, no anticipated results, and no real aim in their distribution. I’m sure much will become clear upon their return. Distracted from the program at hand, always with applications for future programs/projects, I became obsessed with the structure of communications we find ourselves in. You want to make something?
Fill in this form.
Distribution: Notes of Interest
Survey: dist. 20 of 100
Most people respond positively, but somewhat hastily. They are careful to avoid face-to-face interaction. “Yes, I would like to participate, but do I have to do it now?” Often in a hurry, or understandably pursuing their own train of thought, they seem relieved that the survey doesn’t require on-the-spot responses, or real-time interaction. They are happy to pop the letter in the post.
I so hope the surveys are returned in good time!
Questionnaires: dist. 7 of 50
Lots of questions about the questionnaire:
“Do I have to write?”, “Do I have to be serious?”, “There’s no real answer, right?”, “Can I write in French?”, “Can I write short answers?”, “Do I have to write my real name?”, “Are you serious?”,
Concordances
for Joanne Kyger
I
Although I draw the philodendron
its leaves yellow and die; although
I draw the fringy coleus
it drops branches in first-freeze tantrums.
My walls are covered with growing plants
that died of cold and parasites.
So that isn’t what it’s for.
Marilyn Hacker
Concordances
I am continually caught in the trap of wanting to reach some ‘universal’, some point (a place, a time, a way of being, an essential truth?!) that would forever prove our eventual sameness, our rock bottom unity as beings. Paper airplanes until then. Quests for the ‘universal’ have been debunked repeatedly as ignoramus seeking his own navel in everyone else’s. The world is not New York. … Yet it is, it is I tell you! Something about a carnival carousel of paper horses.
I’m writing this post from the future, so bear with me.
I recorded a trial-run of the performance on this day. It went fairly smoothly, though the sun was much brighter in the first tape, and I bumped the tripod two or three times. I recorded four hours:
10am) A.G. Spalding fountain pen,
11am) HB Pencil,
1pm) nib
2pm) iBook G4 keyboard
I’ve spent some time now editing the reels, with the help of Phil Hawes in CDA. My ideal viewing format is a 4-way split screen, simultaneous loop of all the media (the sound would also be simultaneous), though in order to save time, (and become more efficient with FinalCut Pro), I’ll use this footage in a double split screen, simultaneous loop, using only the Fountain Pen and the Computer Keyboard. I’d like to re-record the performance with a few adjustments to the lighting. I envisioned something more of a “science experiment”, an objective analysis of “performance”: cleaner, more clinical, more suited to a modernist cube. Though, I should question my own desire to clear away all Romantic ‘flaws’.
Phil and I had a great talk about the possible interpretations of the work: Is this the devolution of writing? Would Marx have been able to write so well in a cubicle? The viewer will no doubt be tempted to read the images chronologically, or perhaps associate the brighter sun of the morning with the pen in terms of some ‘good old days’? Or the music of the keyboard as progress? Truth is: I’m not after anything — except the open inquiry of writing: as an experience that, for me, is equal parts murderous torture, and sublime dream. Something about the harmony between pleasure and pain… A snake eating her tail.
A key point: you won’t be able to read the writing.
I feel like I walked all over Montreal today. Which is odd, because I didn’t walk much more than I do everyday. May be because I’m a bit worn out. Every night, right before ‘bedtime’ I become excited about the next day so much so that I can’t sleep. I’m awfully tired, but I just don’t want to let any ideas (or opportunities to record them) slip away. Mornings, I need a shot of espresso just to see straight! I’m attaching a lot of meaning to this because my preferred schedule happens when I’m up earlier each day, and I fall easily into sleep at lights out. I hope to be back at the Sattva Yoga Shala by the end of this week. Laura and I were busy sorting out details for the Team A Art Matters applications late last night: Draw(ing) Together and the Winter Drawing Room. I’ve been making some strange little guoache paintings, and I let myself get tied into You Tube. I found the ‘Line Guy’ that I loved so much as a child: Osvaldo Cavandoli! and have been watching and re-watching Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting video (the one with Donald Sutherland), and all the Talking Heads stuff I can find.
Tonight I’m excited because I’ve got a neat little stack of questions printed beside me, a miniDV, and tripod, ready to go for tomorrow. Based on the results of the writing trials, (and some other technologically determined constraints) the questions are printed on 8×10 paper. I’ve got 4 hours worth of blank tape. There are still so many things undetermined! I need to know if the sun will shine tomorrow. If yes, then I can set up a table near the window, draw my white curtains and that would be a beautiful, diffuse and changing light for the video. I am fairly certain that I want to focus on my hands. Mainly because I couldn’t think of anything ‘universal’ to wear, and I want to keep things superficially very simple. If there’s no sun, I’m going to truck it all over to the Ellen gallery. We’re between shows and I’m hoping JoAnne and Paul can shine some lights in a corner for me. I could also set up where Pal Thayer’s work was. There was a spotlight on the floor where viewers would stand in front of his screen that would be perfect.
