User:Aitantv/p r o j e c t

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

PRACTICAL

KEY THEMES

  • Hybridity
  • Tribalism
  • Surveillance (hyper visibility)
  • Predator/Prey relationships

FORMAT

cooking interview / fieldwork

  • sound divorced from image

the host / the host

  • the host - director cooking stew for speculative scenes

the guests / the parasites

  • specualtive scenes - talk (of the host) from behind the camera


which camera lens?

  • Is it a combination of camera approaches?
  • Is it a simple handheld DV camera? This could help overlap with Paranormal movies (like Blair Witch) lending it a certain authenticity
  • A wide lens for the indoor scenes and a more narrow lens for the outdoors? Or go even wider with the outdoors to reference surveillance.


RESEARCH IDEAS

  • food related internet conspiracies


RECEE

  • greenhouses south of rotterdam
  • Het Nieuwe Oost Cemetery
  • Synagogue in Bourtange
  • Mevalana Mosque (name after Turkish for Rumi)
  • Mescidi Aksa Mosque, Den Haag (very near gallery 1646)

INTERVIEWS

Salimah Gablan, Coffee Meeting, 02.12.22

Yaakov Gablan (father)

  • A painter who moved from Iraq, to Israel, to the Netherlands.
  • Looking for connection in older life he went to Schak, a chess cafe, enjoying the games and community. The men from the Schak came to his funeral.
  • Favourite Iraqi dishes are Kubba Shorba (meat, onion, herbs, spices) and Torshi (pickled vegatables). Also mention of a lebanese fglat bread
  • The funeral took place in November 2022. Yaakov was wrapped in a linen showl. Olive branches garnished his body. His paintings decorated the space. Light flooded in through the open doors.
  • his children were important to him than his own sibligs who he'd had various disputes with, usually in relation to money.
  • He is buried in Het Niuwe Oost Cemetery - specifically wanted to be buried in a public cemetery - but his wife Christine (Swiss Dutch) wanted him to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

Jewish diaspora

  • tribalism - the idiosyncracy of each and every jewish family and custom
  • embodied otherness - it's something you can't get away from - it carries through inter-generational - even Salimah's daughters are considered other, 'where are you from?'

Resources

  • R - The Hadji, by Leon Unis (Jewish Arab symbiosis)
  • R - The Jewish Bride, by Judith Neurick (the disappearing history of iraq)
  • R - The Story of the Jews, by Simon Schama / Russel Shortall

Dr. Lisette van Lieshout, 19.03.23

  • Virus is a live organism
  • bacteria single cell organism
  • Parasites are u-carriers - complex cell structure - "parasites are actually very small animals"
  • tape worms (intestinal), malaria (most well known and deadly parasite), scabies (ecto-parasites are outside the body)
  • the host rarely benefits
  • european hypothesis: theres an increase in auto-immune diseases because of the scarcity of parasites. More parasites in the body would mean less volatile auto-immune flare ups from other diseases.
  • symbiosis / coexistence / don't use that term -
  • commencalism - the parasite benefits but the host remains the same.
  • spoke about relationship between Jews and parasites (and parasites in Israel)
  • next meeting: Wed 26th April, 14:30-1730: interview, filmming microscope + video feed, filming dead parasites in petri dishes (with fixative)

TUTORIALS

07.02.23

Rosella

  • is there anough depth in the interviews? maybe reveal more or go deeper
  • could become a larger patchwork
  • could be there interviews pull you out of the fictional elements
  • meeting around the table - a group encounter - where all the pieces come together
  • the interviews certainly feel like real life
  • interesting interaction between the enacted and documentary - you wonder about the connections between the elements - the interviews are so focused on the narration and the fiction is a more spatial/visual representation + but there is connective tissue
  • W - Pere Portabella 'El Sopar' (1974) - collective discussion, political action/activism, people meeting, preparing dinner, and eating - the context around the political oppression
  • what is the most simple thread - write a scene which concretely depicts this
  • more intentionally pushing communicating the relationship between artist-host-parasite
  • now you have ingredients but you need the recipe - reduce the ingredients
  • the dinner table - a place of universal connection - relatable from different backgrounds - hints at this with G-Zi - now you can expand to have an ensemble cast -
  • the interviews/vignettes could be establishing shots of the guests at the dinner
  • Bela Tarr - https://www.eyefilm.nl/nl/programma/bela-tarr/125976 - film about banquet with homeless people -
  • part of the banquet is the duration of the event -
  • Bunuel - discreet charm of b - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discreet_Charm_of_the_Bourgeoisie - (1973) so might have influenced
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyoAiP4mGhE&ab_channel=FilmStruck
  • how to render visual considerations around 'hungry host' - how to maintain the subtlety of the themes between multiple characters - explaining big themes through simple small talk -
  • believability - project is closer to reality so absurdism can be relative

Sabine

  • who hosts that feast?
  • the outsider - is the guest the native
  • Peaky Blinder - unwanted guest - episode - shifts the atmosphere - tvtropes.com
  • The Party (2017) dir. Sally Potter
  • Festen, a celebration
  • Eraserhead, dinner scene
  • casting - who would the characters be? perhaps people trained in improv - a set of hidden games that can lubricate the social encounter - punctuated by actual happenings
  • interviews - a hunger for more details - Isabelle interview somehow harder to decipher + confusion over what is the context, why is it important for me, it's very self-enclosed, how does this connect with the rest of it -
  • could you host these other artists in your conversation?
  • do they speak about the host? Do they know who the party's for? what's their position? Is it designed like a game? Or more free-flow?
  • do all the guests have diasporic backgrounds?
  • how do these positionalities come

Barend

  • cinematography - nice - geometrically c
  • feedback loop in connection with the chanting
  • the interviews feel surface level -
  • Salimah - hospitality/art connection drawn but not explained
  • Isabelle - cooking/hosting, less poetic somehow more kitchen sink, less-stylized
  • the dialogue is not reaching a depth
  • MEVLANA MOSQUE - art feeding off it feedback loop, a somewhat existential/spiritual thread, geometrically composed (precise) - fit with the chanting - connects with the chanting - nicely choreographed - Aitan is outsider in the space, you are an alien in that space
  • the mosque and the basement -
  • W - The Sandman written by Neil Gaman - an episode with a muse who'se been caughy by a writer, he captures the muse
  • W - Flux Gourmet
  • PERFORMATIVE -
  • INTERVIEWS - portraits, non-assuming, reportage (like news item),
  • Is it important for you to be a character in this? How important is it to translate this story?
  • W - IDFA - All You See dir. Iranian filmmaker
  • important to find subjects with same stakes
  • If it is about you then maybe you should be a character. Own your story.

Ine

  • Cinematorgaphy - nice images, but what are we looking at? Or why are we looking at it?
  • We get to know two figures
  • the mantra - the artsit, the host, the parasite - it's a little bit heavy and a conflicting theme - the parasite feeding off of another organsim - seems an attempt at unity
  • Interview 1, Salimah - gentle and genuine - the camera is generous to her but we don't see the painting - feeding/eating lightly touched upon -
  • Interview 2, Isabelle - curacao, memory - dancing in the kitchen - again we don't see what she's doing - intellectualise a lot in order to connect the images
  • The Parasite - The stairs to the parasite - very gripping - seems to suggest there's a recipient of the food - does the person have a disease, a pest, a hostage, many connotations - this gest is so suggestive - food exchange caring, hospitable, tells more about love than talking about it - the gestures are meaningful - very gripping - these gestures are becoming symbols - a very relatable 'real' space
  • Mevlana - a continuation with the stairs - not allowed to see much of this figure - by showing the figure as a shadow it creates a story - hiding/revealing - public space but inside/outside -
  • hungry host = angry host /
  • kammer spiel (German) - chamber play -
  • maybe there are more gestures that can express the idea you're trying to translate - the idea of hiding, and shadow
  • a story about the past which is still in the present in you - think of the implications of the choices you made - think about gestures that belong to that or spaces - tell the story you want to tell - why is the ghost a hungry host hostage parasite? What are the implications?
  • The mosque and the cellar is really so much more compelling - the stuff relating to crypto Jews that really use your voice

13.02.23

Group mentor session, Cihad

  • 'The Artist' is a bit of a loaded term - consider using Host-Parasite.
  • Also more manageable having a duality as opposied to a trinity
  • you are trying to connect with ancestry - the questions/journey might be more interesting than the answers
  • W - Emilie Jacir - works with letters as a form describing checkpoint in Bethlehem

13.03.23

David Tutorial

  • GRAPHIC TREATMENT - powerpoint (bullet points or ticks) / educational / pragmatic / academic / open university / depersonalise / news report text + sci-fi /reportage location. Biopolitical slant e.g. tick box on identity papers 'marginality' 'ethnicity'
  • PHOTOGRAPHY - should be slick, precise, only strong images. Cemetery + data center is especially vague / sloppy
  • make data center more ambiguous - connect surface of data center with pixels
  • interactive imagery - go into the pixels, the grain
  • COOKING - stock imagery v. paranormal tone - cooking tutorial - 'how to cook your great grandmother' - 'is he really saying the quiet part out loud'

Barend Tutorial

  • tripod implies precision - forensic - intentionality - constraint - didactic
  • VO - makes it legible and self-contained
  • loop - change some wordingh for beginning/end
  • cemetery - handheld - sneeky -
  • picture - present the initial interaction - use blue our of Leah to cut to the next scene -
  • could the feeding take place on the ground -
  • complete - finish - water-tight
  • Parasite by Proxy (Or How to Cook Your Grandmother)
  • on screen graphics - don't subtitle - add to the irony while being completely strait-faced

30.03.23 - Renzo Martens tutorial

Parasite by Proxy

  • first try to make a really good film - go deep into the material - then you can come out with a self-ironic position. At the moment your playing a good card - but there's nothing at stake. The stakes need to be high before you can get out of jail.
  • for example, it would be funny if you make and show a really good film - and then talk about how you're using it for career growth etc.
  • the self-irony is not convincing, it's defensive - you're not looking into the material - you need to go deeper into the material - you need to reveal - you need to show yourself and the subject
  • There's nothing at stake at the moment.
  • the close geographical proximity of the data center and the jewish cemetery is unclear + the geolocations are totally unnecessary - what do they add?
  • I'm not sure if you really are Opportunistic

Interview in Brussels (interviewer David Bernstein)

  • this is really interesting, funny and political, when you really talk about fetishizing Jewishness and denying the marginal position so identifying with antisemites. It's also hard to tell whether you're performing or being serious.

References - Artists dealing with fetishizing their own identity

11.08.23 + 18.08.23 - Ed Atkins

  • process of unreal - transubstantive - history that is gone - people who are pretending - slippage between 'faking it to make it' and the reality underneath, i.e. upward mobility v. challenges of migration or being othered
  • druze crypto trader guy seems like an actor - self-parody - becomes a character - a certain artifice to these scenes
  • guest host parasite - wheel of synonymic relation between words - its really capacious - an entire phd is in this thing somehow - its worthy of a phd
  • parasite is both figurative
  • "one of my favourite occupations to watch peope watch my work - standing at the back of my installation"
  • text lends itself to more digressive pathways - can film do that too
  • text can unfurl slowly - flourescent green squares allude to a forensic analysis
  • Firework on-screen graphics appears when Ed mentions Dad - dad been dead for years - first appearance as a firework animation during a zoom call
  • content - messy interesting diasporic heterogeneous
  • doc is very digestable - its very clean and perfect - the overdubbing is a chance to digress - where's Leah -
  • installation - is this the right setting for a strait doc couched in a weirder shape/event? the weirdest
  • video is quite self-contained and appropriate
  • the text alludes to much more complex sorruwful loss - it feels deeper - more ambiguous - the lived ambivalence and ambiguity - feeling unbelonging - how do you formally introduce those feelings into a video essay?
  • to challenge the form - to contaminate the form - dealing with a totalized
  • you could start at the literal level - documentary as a host for these things -
  • interest in medium reflexivity - what is a documentary to itself?
  • hospitalitea -
  • the text feels more opinionate - more embodied - a journalistic responsibility in the video which doesnt fit with the notion of anthropophogy - theres a wretchedness to that act
  • risk parasitising - risk being opionated/dogmatic - like the text
  • stock + photos - risks nostalgia -
  • "egg trading" revelation is funny - the rhyme with the "trading with the most intelligent people" v
  • opening the door for more of a mess - strange loops
  • text allows space for a future
  • i enjoy the lab jar to food jar - text as an authored thing claims those connections

future

  • doesnt have to work in a chronological way
  • rather than following history - the logic of the thing is hard to fuck with -
  • potentially be more cryptic about where it comes through -
  • a more confused geography -
  • the opacity of the present is more interesting than the conclusiveness of the past - enjoy the ambivalence -
  • Michel Serres - slightly lunatic approach - everything is up for grabs - hard to grasp - have a look at some of his other stuff - Ed will send some recommendations (comes with a philosophy guide) - its so exciting to read compared to academic stuff - it sustains me, its more thrilling
  • feel your voice in the writing then in the text - how much that reveals of the author -
  • the story is staggering - its sort of the story of everything - the way it gets compressed into food and nourishment and feeding -
  • the more ambiguous something is - the more one strives for clarity or meaning or an answer -
  • that liveness - the doc doesnt leak - theres a safety in that - the elliptical aspects of the text the glimpses of life as its atually lived - and nonsense - how to seed a sense of irrationality and how inconseqeuntial life is - things are not planned and momentous - retroactive assigning of choice/deliberation is also a over-determination of how lifes are lived - that they are significant by dint of our perception
  • i dont think about great-grandparents outside of their significance - wheres the quotidian? -
  • "one thing i despise is a celeb, on like 'desert island discs', talking about their life, self-mythologizing, this baked narrative, to add weight to what is genuinely a load of random events."
  • one is trying to save lived experience from its passing
  • W - Adam Curtis - soviet union then to now - feels almost embaressing to watch 'meanwhile in unimportant world' - great shots of people just getting drunk together - 'why are we looking here?' 'we're looking here cause its life' -

conclusion

  • phd could be a very good idea - so rich - workout what you're adding to this huge discourse - a reflexivity about this - an auto-ethnography - what would be your original contribution to knowledge? - even though most phds are regurgitates
  • giving audiences access to this specific history - the generoity of attending to lives forgotten

post-analysis

  • the project needs to keep developing - with or without PbP. The guest-host-parasite meta-commentary both figurative and metaphoric, and a capacious container for this rich personal (and somehow universal) material. GHP a wheel of synonymic relation between words. The parasite as somehow about everything, hence the lineage of philosphers grappling and riffing with this archtype/paradigm/problematic/vehicle/proxy. Yes the parasite ("para" next to, outside-of, from-without, the "site", the loci, the navel, the nucleus, the place).
  • Text lends itself to more digressive pathways. Can film do that too? Can film contain digressions? Can the nebulous nature of this material express through the form? Text can unfurl slowly. Hungry Host as a code to the form. The text alludes to more complex sorruwful loss than the film. The writing feels deeper, more ambiguous. "I can hear your voice in the text" Ed states. "The lived ambivalence of for example the interview with your father" Ed notes. Generations of evolution, upward mobility, migration, transmigration, all to lead to an a verbal shoulder shrug. How do you formally introduce 'unbelonging', displacement, disjoined dispossession and repossession into a video essay? To challenge the form. To contaminate the form. Risk parasitising. Risk being opionated/dogmatic like the text. Implicate your self in the process, instead of claiming authroitative cold clinical distance. Hugry Host has an aliveness/liveness. The doc, by contrast, doesnt leak. "It's very digestable, to use a culinary term". There's a certainty and expectedness to the film. The elliptical aspects of the text are strengths ruptured by glimpses of life as it's atually lived and nonsense. How to seed a sense of irrationality and the inconseqeuntiality of life. Things are not planned and momentous. We retroactively assign choice and deliberation, an over-determination of how lives are lived, that they are significant by dint of our perception. "One thing i despise is a celeb, on like 'desert island discs', talking about their life, self-mythologizing, this baked narrative, to add weight to what is genuinely a load of random events".
  • Flourescent green squares allude to a forensic analysis. What do I sacrifice by activating this genre? A more personal honest, relatiomship with the quotidian. More weirdness and idiosyncracy slips through the safety net of the formal doc. There's something rather everyday (humble even) about Haji's occupation as an egg trader v. the sharp slick transactional networks of Rabea's crypto trading. Food as a suitable material to concrete these big thoughts. Food as the transubstantiate and the quotidian substance we ingest daily. A network of pause for consumption.
  • The assemblage of different materials in the thesis as an untraditional (innovative) approach to essay. See a mirror with Adam Curtis'use of mundane footage in his epic geopolitical film essays - e.g. men drinking in an alley way in Chechnya. Curtis'dedication to inventing a dogmatic causal narrative to connect international geopolitical events, is intercepted by the mundane reality of life as it really happens. As a viewer it becomes almost embarressing to watch - feels almost embaressing to watch like... "Meanwhile in unimportant world there people just getting drunk together..." Why are we looking here? We're looking here cause it's life.
  • The project doesnt have to work in a chronological way. The logic of chronology is hard to fuck with. Potentially be more cryptic about how the past is implicated in the present. Figure a more confused geography, a messy map. The opacity of the present is more interesting than the conclusiveness of the past, embrace the ambivalence, the openess. Any certainties about the past is also a falsehood. It is always speculation, mediated. Can you reopen history? Depict the vagueness and uncertainty. S talks about Peter Watkins as a doc filmmaker to look into. A reflexive experimentalist, working with re-enactment based on factual materials. "I dont think about your great-great-grandparents outside of their significance. Where's their humanity, their insignificance?"
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