This is a stack of stills taken from all the videos I’ve ever made. I am creating a catalogue of the individual clips—both this physical one, and a tagged digital one—to aid in creating new work. There are, probably, another 200 images from the Youtube Responses that I don’t need to print yet.
I’ve been planning on doing this for a while, but some recent copyright/fair use numbskullery has led me to make myself a new Youtube account. There’s quite a bit of hoop jumping involved in setting up one if you want a sensible URL and not to join Google+.
These are videos of drawings made with a piece of artificial charcoal I’ve been holding on to for about a year. Watching them, and the way they are moved by the newly installed ceiling fans, has been a good prompt for the video project I am forming.
As a simple way to keep myself working while I’m studioless over the holidays I’ve set myself the goal of making one response per day. You can follow the project at antiphons.tumblr.com (gone), though it’s only early days yet—day two!
It’s changed the way I engage with my days: I find I am looking at things more; thinking about them; trying to take something from them.
I was worried about this one. At the time I was depressed, and felt completely incapable of doing anything, incapable even of thinking about doing anything (I wish I could articulate this better). But I had planned to make a video, just as I had planned to go in to the studio, and was able to do these things out of habit (I guess). Making it I worried about it seeming silly, and shallow, and one-dimensional. I think you see that frustration right away in the way my hands move. Unlike the others this is a series of actions which, again, is a product of that frustration. I cover myself, a throw clay at myself, then I want to bury myself in it. They all seemed so dumb to me, at the time. And the clay always makes my face look so sad! And here I look like a sulking cartoon baby at times. That clay, though! It was wetter than before, and such a lovely consistency!
It’s not the shallow thing I thought it would be, though. It’s sort of funny, too! And, as the videos are being presented all together, the individual piece is not so important: it’s about what it adds to the whole. And I think this adds depth.
I’m still thinking about the title/s. perhaps I’m leaning more toward something like ‘Ritual #’, or ‘Proposition for a Ritual #’; something referencing those aspects.
This is what I have been working on. I’m still thinking about the title, but at the moment ‘Monologues’ fits well enough. The first four have been filmed performances: of me either covering myself in clay, or stuffing my mouth with it. The fifth is a series of seven sculptures made by the same process of filling my mouth with clay, but then spitting the clay onto a board. The image above is from a version split across two projectors, showing the four videos simultaneously.
The first three have been posted previously, but I wanted to have them all together here.
I’m still working these out. Still considering other actions, still wondering exactly what they are about. The immediate, practical, goal is to make six of each of the performances, and then experiment with how to show them, and how the sculptures fit into that, too. Key words and phrases floating round my head at the moment include: absence, repetition, ritual, touch/tactility, mediation, communication, production, sensual deprivation, recycling, anonymity, reperformance, frustration, substitution, approximation.
It’s been a while since I’ve made any video, but the atmosphere of both these places struck me last night and compelled me to make some recordings.