Preparing exhibition installation

I decided to remove the protective paper from the inside of the suitcase (had a little hope to find something unexpected). I want to make a contrast between the inside and the outside of the suitcase.  The with colour is meant to make a more simple and light space.

At the same time, I’m testing and adjusting my video material. The new projector seems to be a good solution. It is able to make a 2,5 m image at a distance of 2 m. There is a lot of settings possibilities I have to find out, also which video compression is the best. I probably have to make to versions; one for the projector and one for Vimeo.

My poem had become an important part of my entire project. I made some experiments combining words and images, but I like the clean example below.

 

Voice replacement

I made new recordings, but it is still a kind of test. I’m testing the sound and the animation elements. I don’t want to disturb the voice or the acting. I like that the atmosphere expands the room; something is going on in the background. A lot of the sound is not planned; for example, while recording sound from a dog there are licking his paw, I got traffic sound in the background. I like to explore the sound after recording, there is always something unplanned which are useful.

Cut-Up poem/text

My brief research shows that William S. Burroughs is a key figure when it comes to working with cut-up poem.
His sentence “when you cut into the present the future leaks out” takes my attention. I’ll have some similar experiences while I worked with my listed words.
My experiences were that words in a random constellation evoke unknown/forgot memories, in some cases like a coded personal information – information which is already there, but not yet exposed.

Together with cinemaphotography Antony Balch, William S. Burroughs made the video below. In this one, they are experimenting with voice replacement.

Another interesting video made by Antony Balch, Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs is “The Cut-Ups” from 1966. The repeating sentence with slightly different pronunciation makes a rhythm through the sequence. It is not only the words but also the film clips which are edited together in a nonsense sequence. As the words, the shots creates a rhythm. The idea of montage is in this example is pushed to the extreme. The story moves forward and backwards without a real narrative, it leaves a mood and an impression of playful systematic chaos. I got the feeling that there are stories everywhere it is just a matter of attention.
The cuts are a mix of footage from various film projects.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique

 

Voice replacement: Test recording

I’m working on a new sequence.
I made a new poem out of my list of words, which is not a list but a pile of cutout words. By the law of chance, this text appeared (tried many others). For me, it has resonance, not directly to any of my dreams but to my life situation right now, for me it releases emotions.
I got the thoughts that I have made not just a list of “dream words” but a vocabulary to express myself in general.

I have to make another shooting session, my outcome is too blurry.
I’m very satisfied with the acting. It is interesting to have two characters at the same time. Looking forward to incorporating background and other painted elements.

 

Playing with cut out words

My entire list of words is 143. The words are based on the 20 dream images I made.
I have made some more test with the words:
Alphabetic order
Number of letters going from few letters to several
Ten columns (ten words on a line creates a poem).

It turned out very constructed, and I missed the magic. Then I printed the list and cut out the words and used the law of change by dropping them from a distance. I organised the words; in alphabetic order, and in order to make sense. But still, I felt it was too constructed.

With my smartphone, I made some recordings in slow-motion. The production value was too bad, but I could frame grab images during the sequence. The drop made the selection and at the same time, the drop made a composition which I found interesting.

From images to words

I transformed all my twenty dream images to words. My method was: what do I see, what did I hear and which feelings, emotions or mood do I remembered from the dream.
I’m not sure about next step or if there should be a next step. I had some interesting conversations with Cecilia Zwick Nash and Christina Funder about poem and system. I had a good experience last time I worked with the words, where I created the poem I used in my voice replacement tests, but I’m not interested in repeating the same session. I have to think it over.
Reading the text (on the yellow background) horizontally makes funny new word constellations.

 

Conversation with Cecilia Zwick Nash

I invited my self to my old friend Cecilia’s place in order to talk about my master project, to be more specific; my work with text and talk. Cecilia is an actor, poet, writer and she grew up in Drakabygget, a spectacular artist community, among painters and poets in the seventies and eighties in the south of Sweeden.
I wanted her response to my test sequences of voice replacement. She found it interesting; the visual style the way of acting.
She encouraged me to let the sound follow the image, like what I did in the scene where a cello follows the old man on the beach.
She suggested me to think about the actors/characters having an argument where the timing and speed of lines increases and decreases, like a verbal fight. Where the talking characters create a space while talking from one screen to another.
We talked about using text or not. Cecilia showed me some books of the poem called sound poem. The text is used as visual elements as well as text. The compositions of words are like notes for sound; small size=low sound etc. We talked about having a system or not. Cecilia explained that the idea was not having a system, I mentioned that cut-words, mixed typography, white paper and not having a system are a kind of system.

She liked the three masked men on a line; the tiny difference in their movement and talks. I told her that I one the first hand was annoyed because of the head moves but after found them essential for the sequence. It leads us to talk about chance operation/coincidence. My experiences instruct people, until now, is: say a little and see what happen. Cecilia told about Situationisterne, an art group from 1957 which her parents were part of.
The engine was: spontaneity, improvisations, chaos, turmoil, speech choir, music, etc. and using the unpredictable. The intention was to create a larger living space for an anti-authoritarian dialogue culture by bringing the imagination to power to bring up the rule between ruler and ruler. They were against the fine culture and the convention, the situationists focused on the individual situation and wanted to abolish the difference between the artist and the audience, between everyday life and art.
They infused the concept of “play” as a value criterion in relation to the art

Words, system and Christina

My plan is to make one more session transforming dream images into words like I did one year ago (From images to words). The words became poems and then voices. Now the voices are an important part of my art project.
I will extract more words from the new dream images, expand the list of words. Work with the length of each poem; repetitions, rhythm and tone. Probably still with only 10 words.
Working with words is not my comfort zone, but I like having strong restrictions like the number of words. And I do like, that the source of the words cames from my dream images.

But I still feel insecure about it, therefore I yesterday met Christina Reedz Funder. She is a rhetoric, we have been working together before and now she is at Rhetoric and Design at KADK, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. She’s a good friend, a really good coach and she is familiar with my project.

Christina explained that you have always used systems, ever since the start of writing. Not having a system was low status.
A system could be a specific number of lines or chapters, the words rhymed endings, words accentuation, verses, etc.
In Shakespeare, the morale, the good and the rich talks in a system (verse). The poor, lower class talks without a system.
Not having a system was first seen with the modern.
We talked about that from a creative perspective is a system something that links the intellectual- and bodily language. Several senses are activated.
By using a system you can be lead to coincidence; it’s out of my control, the system takes over. I set the work, myself and the viewer free.
I have to think that a system sets the process free. The system helps me to stop communicating (we talked about graphic design vs. art).
The system gives a voice to the project/artwork.
I can continue to make dogmas/obstructions, make a pool of opportunities, and then using its outcome. My role will be as an editor; contribute to meaning via serendipity.

Our conversation reminded me of my research paper “Chance as a trigger”. The difference was that I had not thought about the subject serendipity in relation to a text.
Christiana encouraged me to put my self into a situation in order to achieve the benefit of serendipity.
She mentioned a Danish poet, Inger Christensen, who wrote with a 2000-year-old system. The sentence does not make sense, it leads the thoughts to a room of sens.
Make a room of sens and mood is the way I want to go, including words written or spoken.

We gonna meet again in 14 days. Thanks, Christina.