Philip Ewe (United Kingdom)
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What
A projected black screen, a young man starts speaking and his words show themselves in white subtitles in the middle of the screen - "Alright let's see what do you want - freestyle?" Freestyle is an 18 minute video of an encounter on the street between the artist and a young man. The young man volunteers to freestyle rap and takes charge of the microphone improvising rhymes incoherent ramblings, memories, reflections of his rapping abilities, jokes, observations of the petrol station and a running interaction of haphazardly ordering drinks from a locked petrol station after midnight - his words are the only subtitles throughout the video. The artist acts as prompt to a vocal train that keeps on rhyming.
The film shifts halfway through the young man and artist now in conversation and on the move, the ambient sounds of cars and footsteps around their dialogue. the artist is questioning and the young man, Andre expresses his thoughts on the differences between rap terminology, reflects on periods of unstable mental health and hints at the episodes that have accompanied this and the part waves.
There is a strange dislocation within the work not just within the rap which is variously coherent where meaning and language slip up on themselves, but in an encounter that has not visual documentation where accompanying subtitles become image and the viewer fills in their own picture variously through listening and reading.
How
The process of making this work is initially of chance - a spur-of the moment pursuit into the night to see what could be recorded from walking the streets and in this case having the confidence to approach strangers, with a microphone in hand and encouraging speech through an amiable and slapdash enthusiasm. The subtitling is handled somewhat, words are presented in digestibly long lengths or cut up into small spitfire words where the viewer - it's like feeling around in the dark with your ear and coming across a chance meeting. our young man Andre's generosity for sharing his words, rhymed and unrhymed was a gift from boomeranging an artist and a recorder onto the streets to see what material would come back.
Why
In the case of the processes for this work I was in the mood for talking, playing, activating the world and gathering material off the streets and all the unexpected returns that come from wandering and taking the opportunity to approach and activate encounters with strangers. This is part of a larger collection of fragmentary footage and sound gathering regularly.
I'm keen to explore how opportunism can create works and how footage and conversations drawn from close circumstantial situations of my surroundings can shape a work that speaks beyond that and for the structure of a work to be dictated by my attractions and the results of chance encounters. The process is one of rhyming myself out into the world and seeing what comes back is a kick of a creative process.