Jujube/methods

This page currently hosts all the sessions from the Method & Writing class with Steve.

Session 1. 20/09/2018

Describe three of your works/ projects you have made

for each work describe

What (100 words max)

How (100 words max)

Why (100 words max)

300 word description of three works = 900 words (max)

Darkness, a Sight

Darkness, a Sight is a poem in video, made during an artist residency in Hämeenkyrö, Finland. The scene starts with a piece of paper on the wall that reads: seeing is permanent. Throughout the next five minutes, the viewer sees the hands of a poet attaching words, phrases and stances — similarly printed on pieces of paper — and covering a part or the whole of the previous text. An atmospheric track plays as the poem progresses. The camera, set in front of the text, remains still. The video ends with a black screen, illuminated by a white dot before turning black again.

I wrote the poem in two phases. First, I collected words and phrases related to the theme I wanted to explore: seeing, permanence, knowledge, blind, darkness, to see, can we see, to be seen... I typed them in a document so that each word/phrase inhabited one line. I then cut them up with a paper cutter, resulting in strips of varying areas. In the second phase, I arranged the strips until meanings emerged. For example, "with no shadows can we see." When I finalized the composition, I printed a new document with the exact order, cut them again and assembled the poem in front of the camera frame with clear tape. The sound recorded during the filming, including rips of the tape and noise in the environ, was later processed to produce a drawn-out, echo-y and contemplative effect.

I was inspired by the Finnish November, which led me to think about the relationships between sight and darkness. I chose to make a video because the form suited the continuous reveal of new meanings while keeping the old ones on the same screen. This process mirrored the gradual questioning of my own assumptions about darkness: that we cannot see in it is untrue.

original

Darkness, a Sight is a poem in video, made during an art residency in Hämeenkyrö, Finland. The scene starts with a piece of paper on the wall that reads: seeing is permanent. Throughout the next five minutes, a poet (me) tapes words, phrases and stances — similarly printed on pieces of paper — to cover a part or the whole of the previous piece. The viewer sees

I wrote the poem by cutting and collaging words printed on a piece of paper. The words I gathered included: seeing, permanence, blind, darkness, and the phrases: to see, can we see, to be seen. Once I finished composing, I printed the final text, cut the paper and grouped the strips into stances with precise order. The camera was set in front of the area of text. During the filming, I attached each strip to the wall. I later processed the sound of tape ripping and other noises from the environ as the track for the video.

I was inspired by the Finnish November, which led me to think about the relationships between sight and darkness. I chose make a video because it was the most fitting for the continuous reveal of new meanings while keeping the old ones on the same screen, a process that mirrored the gradual questioning of my own assumptions about darkness.

a lichen dreams (again)

Written during my residency on an arctic island, a lichen dreams (again) is a story about the ecology of death told from a lichen’s inner monologue. The lichen woke from a thousand years of hibernation to witness the destruction of a village swallowed by the sea. But just as the lichen prepared itself to live again, it was consumed by a reindeer. The story consists of text and images printed on 4x6cm glossy photo papers and assembled into a store-bought photo album. The images were composited from the landscape with varying degrees of abstractness, expressing what the lichen might see (although without the anthropomorphizing, lichen, as simpler forms of life, does not perceive.)

The story came to me on a quiet, early morning, when I sat down to write something from my extensive hikes on the island and overheard dinner conversations about the history of local fishing villages.

I had been moved by the landscape and the fragility of life in an extreme climate. The words came through me and onto the page. I chose the form of a photo album — a once-popular mechanism to record memories — to evoke a reading experience. Are we witnessing a distant event, knowing everything we see, though fictional, has vanished from life?

original

Written during my residency on an arctic island, a lichen dreams (again) is a story about the ecology of death told from a lichen’s perspective. The story consists of text and images printed on 4x6cm photo papers and assembled into a store-bought photo album.

The story came to me on a quiet, early morning, when I sat down to write something from my extensive hikes on the island and overheard dinner conversations about the history of local fishing villages.

I had been moved by the landscape and the fragility of life in an extreme climate. The words came through me onto the page. I chose the form of a photo album to evoke a reading experience akin to witnessing an event.

Towards the Unknown

original

Towards the Unknown is the collection of three essays I wrote during the year I traveled around the world and participated in various artist residencies. The essays document my perceptions of new places and moments of discovery and sureness as well as those of doubt and uncertainty.

I wrote two of them in Mexico, when I was a resident at Pandeo, and one in Norway, when I joined a group of artists in Sørøya, Finnmark. I spent around one week writing and editing each of them before publishing them on Medium.com.

I decided to spend 2017 grounding myself in the identity of an artist. The transition was difficult to grasp, and, as I have done whenever I attempt to find clarity, I turned to writing. to process the world around and inside of me. Each time I go through this process, I produce a collection of text. Towards the Unknown is the most recent addition to that.