6 - 12 November 2011

What a week! Phew, glad it is over and with great results!!

First I want to share my photo contribution for this week to Eyes Everywhere (see link in the side bar or just click the words). Every month there is a new theme to collaborate on - from our separate parts of the world. November is SELF PORTRAIT: IN YOUR USUAL PLACE.

This photo was taken during the third shoot for my promo video for my SOON TO BE LAUNCHED indiegogo.com campaign to help raise funds so that I can GET TO KENYA... (those three dots are so that you know that more info is to come - same bat-time, same bat-channel)

Another exciting news item :  the photo above was taken yesterday at Aguafuerte Taller de Dibujo y Grabado, where I am currently an artist-in-residence - developing a series of lithographs for "Potential Spaces". But this photo is with Chilean artist Mariana Tocornal. I've been invited to participate in an exhibition entitled "Seis=Doce" (Six=Twelve), organized by Paula Cortés, director, Galeria Espora (Santiago de Chile). The prints that Mariana and I will make (printed by master printer and Aguafuerte director Iván Lecaros) will be paired together as a diptych! Paula paired us together even though we didn't know one another before yesterday - of, that is a lie, we met briefly at a dinner party at American artist Melissa Wyman's apartment when she was living in Santiago. Anyhow, I think Paula has great intuition. Mariana and I chatted for a long time yesterday - explaining our work and process to one another. We definitely have a lot in common, even outside of the visual similarities. I'm super excited!! More news about this show to come. P.S. other artist pairings: Melissa Wyman & Iván Lecaros, Felipe Santander & Paulo Toledo.

That's all the update for now - I think... I hope didn't forget anything, I've been doing that a lot recently. Thanks for reading! Woot woot! If you haven't already hit "like" on my facebook page, please do! And tell your friends! Gonna make this residency at Lake Victoria Arts Residency Program in February/March HAPPEN and I am going to need all the help I can get to spread the word!

until next time ...

Using improv as material

Originally I was writing a post about process, in particular my process, meanwhile I would take breaks - since I can never focus and just do one thing anymore - to work on this new piece. Actually, I am not so sure it is a piece as an investigation. 

Do you ever do that? I think it is kind of like tinkering, right? You find something interesting so you have to take it apart part by part and play around with different combinations - to keep the creative juices flowing. So that is just what I started doing. The video is by no means complete - as with all the videos/work I post here, but again it is a thought, a way of tinkering. 

It all started when I began to help my friend prepare a DVD portfolio (the friend in the video). As I was asked to do something traditional with an improvisation, I began to realize that as the camera-girl I not only needed to do something traditional, but also improvise. So, we made the traditional video for her portfolio and now I am re-examining the work, looking, tinkering with her movements. It is an exploration of movement and gesture as an explicit symbol, not as an unconscious, yet deliberate, communication. 

(don't mind the interlaced-ness) I am thinking about the relationship of dance to pedestrian movement, the ideas that dancers and choreographers use interpreting themes, concepts, ideas as movement and the relationship that these ideas have to quotidian movements - as a viewer, as image, as moving image. 

Rather than consistently resisting traditional practices and opting for experimental, this work is accepting of a more linear way of thinking. I see this as another branch, an extension, of my work. I hope that it will organically open itself to ideas of a more experimental nature in due course.

Chile reconfiguration

Whoever said that you can't re-edit old work? Ok, no one, but anyhow. Have a - still yet to be officially officially confirmed - show at La Maison du Chili in Paris for July. I will be showing videos from You are a Perpetual Tourist (also known as An Infinite Ordered Set of Events, gosh that's confusing), but only ones that I shot in Chile.



While initially making this work, there was a round where I played with meshing the videos together. In the end, it never panned out, but I am definitely sure that for these particular ones, this is where the installation needs to be. Here is a simple sample, I have more intricate combinations I am working with. I will post another sneak peek one, the sequences are more firmed up - oh and one the show is more firmed up.

P.S. don't mind the pixelation.

To Wait

I started a new video about a week ago. It is moving slowly. In part this is due to the fact that I am slowing down part of the video A LOT and then exporting that and slowing it down again, blah blah halb. And the other reason I attribute it to (besides having a million and one things going on right now, this video and Paris are only two of the many) is building a relationship with the video. It is about - get ready, this is new - perception. There is this waiting, this expectation, this subdued, controlled frenzy of anticipation. Then after the event the people scatter; there is a chaotic exodus. Basically I have been playing with cutting between the two, using two channels, changing speeds to introduce certain characters ... I think all three of them will come into play.



When I started this video, I wanted it to be a "quick-video" - you know, one of those that I make to make things happen, one of those that I haven't been able to make in over a year. Well, obviously this isn't going to be one of those.
I find something magical in this waiting that we are all so familiar with. The wait that leads to the let down, to the anticlimax. Children are notorious for embracing that wait. They don't even seem to notice it. The new toy, the new movie, the new episode, the new whatever. It happens, you see it, you buy it. And then, it is just over. The amazing part is that it doesn't bother them; thankfully, they still have yet to understand this particular type of loss.

Many of the adult situations of waiting are different (yet, I find similarities in weddings, graduations, and the like, but we will save that discussion for when I get my PhD in cultural practices and performance ... ha ha ha.). Perhaps with the anticipated flight (you know, the one to Paris) I am thinking more and more about my travel experiences: waiting just to wait some more. You wait to check-in, to wait to go through security, to wait to sit at the gate, to wait to board, to wait to sit on the plane, to wait for a drink or snack or movie or to use your approved electronic device, to wait to land, to wait to de-board, to wait to get your luggage, to wait to ...

Now that I think about it, I guess it is really the same as all the others, but there isn't a "celebrated" event around any of that waiting. Your anticipation is all about the arrival, and on the way to the arrival you have different stages of waiting. But it is that arrival that is key - because that is when everything changes.

Back to the topic at hand. Slow video.

The Video Ed It Or ... what?

I started the way I had started my most recent videos. Of course since my most recent videos are experimental documentaries where I look for and thus carve out the narrative and/or "experience" (can I be so bold as to use that word?), it didn't quite work out so well.

So I reorganized. Remembering a time when each cut needed to be planned. I did what I had done so many times before: logged each shot, making markers and then planning the edit. That got the job done - and pretty much only that. I soon realized that none of my "education" (I seem to be really unto using quotes lately) was going to help me. Experience was going to help me, but that was indeed what I lacked.

Often I think that given my age (32) I should be much more accomplished than I am, that my experience should be greater than my learning. And in many ways it is, but not for structured, narrative, cinema editing.

I keep struggling with trying to find the correct word for the difference between what my experience is and the experience that I am lacking. A word that specifically and perfectly describes it. What am I lacking? commercial style? cinema style? structured? Structured isn't it, because I have done structured work before (I know, many of you who went to school with me, or have had a look at my sketchbooks probably have very large question marks over your heads - structured? Nicole?), not too often, I have to admit - I am having a hard time coming up with LOTS of examples. Maybe the difference is that in my personal projects I never really envision the end product? - No, that's not it - because the rough cut we have now looks nothing like the rough cut we had before (the rough cut where I drew footage maps, cut, and combined). I don't really know what the difference is, but there definitely is one.

Maybe someone can help me figure out what difference is ... Anyhow. In the meantime, check out the preliminary maps and subsequent notes thus far.












OH WAIT! I almost forgot the moral of the post: never think too far ahead.

Nothing

I feel like I have nothing and nothing is going absolutely no where.

Nothing seems to make sense, but I keep looking for something. I don't think you can see the subtleties of this video with this resolution. There is disturbance, something unsettling. It feels like nothing.

I am hoping that this nothing will manifest towards something, if not into something. Every ten minutes I have, I watch it again. I move things. I write. I try to make sense of why I keep toying with this footage. Is it the footage or the idea?

Just a little bit every day, right? That will steer the gray matter.

Gesture and Contrived Realities

Much of the last week has been spent remastering and re-exporting videos for the web. As mentioned in yesterday's entry, I finally uploaded videos to my vimeo profile. And of course I am using them (well, the ones that have better quality) for my site - ah free bandwidth.

This has given me an extraordinary chance to truly look at the videos I have made over the years (even the in-camera edited one from 2002 - or maybe it was 2001). I found that even though I find text and language fascinating, I rarely use it in my work - or the dialogue that is present, I have not employed for its meaning, but rather for its noise or symbolism.

In When I grow up ... in particular, the words hold no meaning on their own, they tell no story. They story is in the gesture, in the symbolism, in the nonsense.

Similarily in día, the words only give the viewer reference to time of day and place in the world. The story is told through the order of the shots, the repetition of the actions, the gesture and acting.

This continues through every video, up to my most current work - where my MFA thesis (of 2008, which I think I may still be battling with) specifically and opening looks at gesture and its ability to tell a story - to construct a story, in fact.

I started constructing my stories through gesture, and now I document the gestures and allow them to construct their own stories. The gestures lead me to tell you what I see.

Walk with me, for instance, was nothing more than boredom on my friend's balcony in Barcelona. I saw that the women were walking in sync. I tried three times to get the right shot. I used their motions to guide me through the editing, to direct me (rather than me being the director), to reveal their story to me and thus to the viewer.

I am putting together (aka writing) a proposal for a residency, here in Chile. I have been looking at my work and the work of others (in particular Eija-Liisa Ahtila [just google her]), trying to make sense of things - ya know, in a cohesive and somewhat logical fashion. I always knew that something was missing from that series of 62 videos, but the question was: what? My thesis committee (and other faculty members) pushed me to figure that out. Unfortunately, things come when the come for me - be it slow or immediately. The missing part for this came about a year too late. I think I am a late bloomer when it comes to things of the mind, but that is besides the point. So, they pushed and pushed, and what came out? Writing: semi-poetic writing about the videos, attempts to explain in English what I saw and felt, an attempt to give the viewer more direction on how to see my work.

An aside would be how I feel about "telling" people how to see my work, but we can save that topic for another post - preferable one that isn't at almost 2am.

All in all, I think that what I wrote during those months (see thesis books) is very valid. In fact, that is where I am at with this body of work. I am interested in sucking the narrative out of the videos and finding the words. After the words have been extracted, I will need to refine them, to let them show me how their story plays out.

Well, I guess I should try to get some sleep. Any thoughts, as always, are welcome.
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Santiaguino Contradictions (one of many to come)

Looks kinda like a collage, doesn't it?

Thinking in photos

Media is like languages. For some time I have been in VideoLandia: everything I thought came out in video. Soon I visited BookLandia (and would subsequently live between the two). Now I have returned to PhotoLandia, maybe just for a visit. Perhaps I will make a mountain home here.

Here are a few thoughts from PhotoLandia:




Maybe one day they will form a community so that I will not have to change currency every time I cross a border.

A lil bit o solace

This weekend is/was Labor Day weekend, here in the States. I never pay much attention to Labor Day, probably because I can never figure out when it is until it is upon us. So, once again it came as a surprise. All of these open call deadlines due on September 1, and I put them off until Monday September 1. Now, here I am with burned DVDs, filled out application forms, addressed envelopes, and I can't send them. Well, that will teach me!

Friday I got a text message from an old friend, who happens to have grown up near where my parents have a cottage. She was in her hometown and was wondering if I, too was in North Kakolak. Seeing as my parents were already at their cabin, I said that I would drive up on Saturday afternoon and we could catch up on Sunday.

That was my original reason for going up to the mountains. Generally I try to stay away from their cottage for a couple reasons: I hate driving and after living in the middle of nowhere for two years, 'the middle of nowhere' has lost its luster.

Sunday morning at about 9am, this was the fifth time I had woken up since I first set off on my mission to sleep at midnight the night before. I was sleeping on the couch in the living room. My parents had invited two couples with whom they are great friends, which left me without a bedroom or a bed. I don't really mind sleeping on the couch, to be honest. So, on my own I woke up a few times. I was also woken at 5:30am when 'the men' awoke to go fishing; Walleye was in their sights. Therefore, at 9 when I awoke for the 5th time, the women were sleeping and the men were fishing. I got up, even though I have never been known as a morning person, and got myself a cup of coffee. I then slid outside to the swing with my book.

Instead of reading I just sat. The cottage my parents have is very rustic, but still nestled in a subdivision, by no means it is truly in the middle of nowhere. I watched the neighbor mow his lawn and show his son how to find twigs for the fire they would have later that night. I listened to a neighbor lady on the phone with, seemingly, her daughter. Most importantly, I thought. I was reminded of all the mornings I would awake in Barcelona in 2001 and 2002, without a thing to do. I remembered how amazing that was (well, until I truly had absolutely nothing to do and bored and depressed.). During that time I would do a lot of thinking and writing (hence the 'escritos' that you can find dabbled on my blog). This Sunday morning, I just let all of the thoughts flow over me. I lingered with some, and others I let just pass on by.

It has been so long since I have been allowed the luxury of thinking for the sake of thinking. It was been a long time since I have allowed myself this luxury, since I have taken the time to do this. It was inspiration, if only fleeting. Perhaps 30 minutes later my mother had risen and came out to wish me a 'good morning.' I greeted her and asked if there was still coffee left. She said she had put another pot on (I had apparently taken the last cup from pot my father had brewed 4 hours earlier that morning.).

With the memory of these fleeting moments on Sunday and so many of these that I experienced six years prior, I have decided that allowing myself time to think is important to my well-being as a human and an artist. It gives me time to process research and work. It gives me time to process events and ideas. Simply, it just plain gives me time.

The quarter ends in a few weeks. I am going to take almost an entire week and go up to their 'haven', as my mom calls it. I am going to spend the weekend with them (because they go up almost every weekend), and then because I won't have classes to teach I will stay through the week. I will take my own private artist's retreat, some much needed time to organize my thoughts.

You Are a Perpetual Tourist

It began with a bang! They even made me a cake!! Yipeeeeee! The response was really wonderful. There was a steady flow of people at the reception. And what was truly great was that people watched the videos, and really sat down to watch them. The show was simply organized. Kellie Buck helped me plan, and Sarah Daniel was a lifesaver helping me set up and troubleshoot a lot of problems.

I thought it would be great to use the same system of hanging that Dallas, Elizabeth and I did at the Thesis Exhibition in April. So I went to Home Depot to look for these small nails - brads they are called. Being a woman (in Home Depot), I was immediately attended to (I actually enjoyed it). Chris (I believe his name was) helped me look for this 'tool'. "It looks like a screwdriver, the ones where you can change out the head, but the bulb on the handle is larger and made of wood." Yeah, so Chris didn't have much to go on. Eventually we found something that might work. A Gun. A multitasking gun, really : staples and brads. But that was a piece of crap. You could only load one brad at a time and then it was inconsistent when it would shoot it or just, not. Needless to say it took us a really long time Wednesday morning setting up - argh. Thursday morning was time for the video room. Kellie's idea of putting the tables on top of one another was AWESOME!!! Sarah and I put our backs into it and lifted them up! Yea!!! Got some fabric over them and no one was the wiser.

All in all I had 13 digital prints (video stills from the series of sixty-two), the video loop, and the Longing and Distance books. Below is the installation and some details of the stills that were printed.

Video Birth

Almost the entire birth. up until the actual delivery, but her mother needed to sit down so i took her place holding her leg and watched Ceridwen Anne Thomas be born!
So all in all I think I got 3 or 4 hours of footage to go through.

birth

labor then birth.
looks like i will be able to video the birth - or so says the assistants at the desk . . .

thoughts about shooting

today was the first day i went out and shot shot shot. with the total intention of shooting all day.
i got some nice shots from the train going down into the city from roger's park, some families in millenium park, some random children with their parents while we were waiting for the diversey bus, rosa y manny making dinner, and some dinner conversation.
rosa and manny (the mother and son) were a bit uncomfotable with the camera at first, but i do a bit of shooting then leave it running. that way i am getting more than they know, but also familiarizing them with having the camera going.
francisco (the dad) comes back on wednesday. i am hoping to get more then. especially because mindy (the daughter) is closer to her father . . .

on a different note, i got my alumni i.d. from saic, but i am not sure if i can use the lab. everyone that i know who still works there - wasn't there. maybe i will be downtown and try again tomorrow. i haven't figured out my game plan for tuesday, yet.
then again, i am not sure that i want to look at the footage before returning to alfred.
. . .

Paper

Por Fin (Finally)!!
I found the paper for the 'Milwaukee after coming to Milwaukee from California' prints online!
I don't know when the paper will be here, because the books are coming from Spain through DHL ground, but hopefully in a week or so. I want to Chine-Colé the prints I have now to test the process and see if that is what these prints need - perhaps there is a different way to display and mount them . . .
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