User:Kotryna Bu/Writing Methods

Text on Practice

Final Text on Practice

File:Text On Practice - By Kotryna Buruckaite LB1 2022.pdf

Text on Practice

Text on Practice V1

Template for draft text on practice, material description. 
23-03-2022

Describe recent work, Describe current work, Describe the relation between the two, How are the works different? Future work. What do you want to do next? Who can help you and how can they help you? Which expertise?



My recent project “To Each Their Own” is a short fiction film about people from the neighbourhood who are hustling in different ways to get by. The main character Nova and her best friend Oliver are meeting their ends day-to-day by different means online, other people in the neighbourhood rely on the gig economy, they drive Ubers, freelance for Delivery..

The characters are introduced through the point of view of the main character Nova, who is a confident gen-Z’er and sells her worn panties online. Nova knows who’s buying her panties and is willing to increase her sales in order to pay her rent. Her friend Oliver, the master of “side-gigs”, recommends her to be more efficient. And Mo, the Moroccan Uber driver slightly has a crush for Nova,.. All of the characters are believable, typical contemporary types: on the one hand highly educated and privileged to a degree, on the other lacking the opportunities to find long-term housing, income, stability, etc. Precarity is here the key term. The characters have big dreams, but obviously the results in the long run are quite sad.

My current work is the one of text and syntax. I am researching the informal economies, reading about street vendors and other precarious, mostly illegal occupations. For now, while yet searching for the research topic I stumble upon the idea of philosophizing the hustle: can we dematerialize it and even phoethisize it? Can we think of the informal worker as an employee of a viable system, where the government doesn't monitor their activities and the award isn’t always monetary? I am thinking about the mushroom pickers and the berry sellers. Next to it I want to think of the importance of labour carried out by caretakers and maintenance workers. Practises like motherhood and cleaning the house, doesn’t pay much, but are essential to our existence. How do we relate to that? I am embarrassed to admit that cleaning makes me happy. And our society and economy constantly promise us progress, in a Neo-liberal paradise, but what are the ideas of progress for the informal worker?

My current ideas are related to the short film, as both of them are talking about the modes of getting by and the precarious worker.
The short film is set in an era of the internet, the gigs and the hustle are held online, everyone is self employed and has the freedom of working whenever. All of the characters have a slight illusion that they can and will make a lot of money, but in reality they won’t, just like street vendors and mushroom pickers .

Big dreams mediocre results, Although, the mushroom picker might be able to survive without his costumers, as he can cook dinner with his stakes, while the Uber driver and others are more dependant on the company they work for and many other circumstances.



What do you want to do next?

I’d like my next project to be more of a documentary style (photography or film) For that I want to go on a field research where I could meet street vendors or other hustlers, see how they live, whats their daily routine like, but also analyze what kind of importances these hustles carry; how do their business interact with social structures and economy streams of the place. 

And for now before I go, I want to continue writing. I want to write little stories, maybe fictionalized scripts and make small try outs. For now I will need to narrow down my interest to a specific group of people, and for now I’d need someone to guide me through my writing (and probably cut the clutter). I need to figure out what is it exactly that I am talking about, and I can use various methods for that. 

I’ve some ideas for small try outs to write small fiction stories about the ‘street employees; write and film small scenes . For this I’d need to delve deeper into character development, conflict and other dramatic points of a storytelling practice. I think this would be a good exercise to start with before I go on a field trip. 
(for the field research if need some docu knowledge but we are getting a seminar on it soon)

Who’s in your neighbourhood?

Inspiration on texts: Olga Ravn - The Employees, The Mushroom at the End of the World On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Tsing, Anne Boyer. A friend of mine sent me loads of theory from her anthropology studies on informal economy and undocumented workers, I still need to consume some of it.  Artists/Filmmakers: Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Ken Loach , Alina Lupu, Bertien Van Manen, Laure Prouvost

Annotations

Annotation 1 Jonas Mekas - As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

Annotators: Kotryna & Luca

I saw a brief glimpse of beauty. I've never understood real life, I've never understood real people - a personal autobiographical speech.

Jonas Mekas (Lithuanian: [ˈjonɐs ˈmækɐs]; December 24,[1] 1922 – January 23, 2019)[2] was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema" on many occasions. His work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide

Chapter one; incoherent, experimental visuals, different times, scenes, thematics, talking about the images and their relations to each other, brief memories, order of its own in disorder, without understanding for order in it self, not understanding 'the real life", "the real people", doesn't want to understand them; summers of central park, scenes of people sitting in a park, sharing a meal, two adults and a baby, having a picnic; cuts to a group of women walking down the street; cuts to a close up of feed in female shoes walking by; rain; storm and splashing water; a calming melody starts, someone walks down the street, talking inaudibly to the camera; cuts to home movie scenes; different short clips of trips, moments, nostalgia,

Not knowing the artist or his work Luis found a connection to the work ; reflecting on memories, un-chronological; how does it affect the work Luis makes: learned that he has to try to find a narrative in his work; maybe it has its upsides to not understand the others;

A nostalgic collage of footage, more feeling than fact. There's love and intimacy at play. A tension between his personal memories and the naivety of the audience. negation of cinema.

R. Wilbur- the writer. nautical imagery and language, suggesting a sense of travel or a journey , 'gunwale... cargo... a lucky passage' 

Jonas Mekas, diaristic video, 
father of the avant-garde filmmaking
first thoughts of the insert really connected to Luis, 
looking from his own perspective, coming from science background
how it affects Luis: 
    he's documenting moments in the shelter.
    he unintentionally is looking for a narrative, 
    but 

relating to what the V.O. says: i don't understand life no need to understand the work, its more experiencing reflecting on his life, pieces pieces together of archival footage

Really interesting Question : can we get away with this nowadays?

In Defense of the Poor Image Synopsis

[text and author] 

In Defense of the Poor Image is an essay written by artist and writer Hito Steyerl.

[what is it about- what is it’s thesis? (2-3 sentences)]



The text is a critical look on the production of images and it’s shift that happened in the recent years due to Neo-liberal ideologies and the growth of technology/internet. The (capitalist) system now produces value of the image, thus the rich image, as well as the commercial image is dematerialized, the original is produced in copies, and the audiences are the performers (also producers). (Dislocation of value)



[what is its context?]


As H.Steryl writes about the production and consumption of the image in comparison to the past, she notes the blurring lines between the two poles, the audience and the author. The image produces the audience and the audience is performing images too. She also talks about the high quality cinema production, and the death of the experimental art because of the internet.

(Could this be a call to redefine how we value the image?)


[Texts and art works it relates to…]


Guy De Bord - The society of the spectacle, which is about the fact that the hype 
of consumption is inevitable. 


[Relation to your own work?]



Currently I am busy with the idea that one’s life, the all encompassing 
state of being is so commodified, that it makes people produce and consume worthless objects and low value experiences. With the help of the internet, the production and hype-based environment creates arbitrary occupations, which serve only one aim - the monetary. We can’t call them aimless, rather fundamentally rooted in a capitalist driven age.



NOTES TO SELF:

 Thus this text, tells us that the Audience is performing as a consumer too.


film art or any non-commercial — resurrected as a kind of poor image online


Neo-liberal restructure of the system — the free market

capitalist

de-territorization — private sector makes its own rules

Notes On Writing

Notes on writing

What kind of writing do you do on a day to day basis (texts, emails, essays, graffiti, notes on work &c)?

Most of my writing on a day to day basis is done in a note format, on my computer as well as on random sheets of paper. Time to time I rewrite and reorganize them in by sketch book. A lot of thoughts for these notes appear on random occasions, when I'm in the shower, bus, throwing out the trash etc. Besides this sort of scribbling with letters, I write a diary on Evernote, which I share with one of my best friends who used to live oversees. Now she lives in NL, but we keep the diary going. It's not a form of updating her with my days, it is often reflections of our experiences, poems and little chants. I love creative writing that is loose from formats. We also write about our work and research, but in a very informal way. Having someone read my writing gives me motivation to write. Recently I wrote a script, a bunch of emails and planning sheets.

Interview

Interview

Luca interviews Kotryna

Could you describe your practise and tell me what are you currently working on?



At the moment I am interested in ‘’undescribed occupations’’, that's a term I invented myself and it started from an observation of unofficial trade work being done on the streets. Activities such as selling Polaroid photographs or flowers in bars, reading one’s future, selling souvenirs or false fashion garments, these endeavours can’t really be named professions. 
Although, it is someone’s daily occupation, the principal business of one's life.
It also can get really creative at times: once I've seen a guy who was on a street with the scale and he offered people to weight themselves for one euro.
I'm curious to meet these kind of people and to get into their house or, for example, go to places where they get the goods to sell. Who owns these goods? Is there an ‘employer’ ? Who keeps the mechanism of these undescribed occupations running?
Right now I am looking at different methodologies how to approach this phenomenon, I’m curious how can I depict the life that these people live; places in society they inhabit in the best possible manner.
Talking about the form, I don't know if it's a photography project, a film or maybe a reenacted documentary. It might be just a written story. At the moment I am looking for ways to reach out to these people. 

There is a sad undertone , a lot of these people are really poor and do these things because it's the last option to make a living. Is that intentional?



Yes, it is sad in a way but I think it also has a glimpse of faith. It's not that their misery interests me at first, although I could say that I have some sort of compassion for the broke people, whose last resort is this way of earning. As well I think that our current social systems force things upon lower class people, and through this research I want to investigate how exactly.
That's why it's important for me to show how these people live, even though it might be sad.



Are you trying to raise awareness of the current times we live in?


Certainly in a way, I want to give a pinch of critique towards capitalism, but that's not going to be the main cause. I am more interested in sincerely depicting how do these people survive and how they live, what do they brief every day. To express what is essential for their being in comparison to our capitalist, consumer-based society. In a way, maybe these people are escaping capitalism in this way. I’d like this exploration to be poetic to. 
I think my first step is to meet these people, get to know them and then see how willing they are to share. 
Is it about a collaborative process or project with those people and not a street photographers approach? Is it more for you interacting with people ?



That's correct, I think nevertheless for my love for street photography, this time I want to get closer. I want to befriend them, and to know how it really feels from inside to live this kind of life or to earn money in these ways. Talking about the format, I search for some spontaneity in my photography, ideally I want to get into their house and have dinner with them.



How does this project relate to your earlier projects?



My practice is always related to people and how they behave in their environments. In a sense, my film Behold was an exploration of voyeurism: literally stalking people from far away. Now I want to get closer to the people. Little by little I started shooting on the street, and the next step is going to be a closer encounter with these people.



Do you really aim for candid image of the people?And in no way staged?



I would not exclude an idea of dressing the set or a place, but the setting must be real. Maybe using an extra light, but just also making sure that the person is feeling at home and his body language is not staged.



What are the most significant changes you have made with this project so far ?



I have a fascination for certain characters that I would like to work within my oeuvre. 
They are related to maintenance work and household: cleaners, dishwashers… I just wrote a list of occupations that I find interesting and important: maybe I am romanticizing these occupations.
This idea is mostly inspired by artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, whose work is about maintenance workers. She made a manifesto.. Which sounded, a quote: after the revolution, who's going to pick up our trash in the morning.’’ She did performances with sanitation workers in NYC where she shook 8500 sanitation workers hands in order to thank them. I admire this idea, I think a lot of professions are disregarded and not payed well. Some even carry a certain disrespect, even a certain amount of shame?


What How Why

Exercise 29/09/21 note to self: Factual description for the imaginary sister ORIGINAL

Behold , 9 min 2017

Behold is a short experimental film that explores notions of voyeurism through a lens of a mysterious observer. The film is set in the 21st century, in a high building next to a park, where casual occurrences take place on an ordinary day. The zoomed-in and out view reveals what is happening in the neighbourhood and the park below, not so much from a surveillance perspective, but more from a personal point of view, it provides a quiet and curious environment. Hence the film explores a notion of scopophilia, S. Freud's theory about the (sexual) pleasure of looking at others. Firstly, the main inspiration to investigate the act of looking started by the accidental eye contacts with strangers encountered on the streets. To capture that moment I went on the streets with my cam corder, which ended up in reckless stalking sessions. By doing that I wanted to deconstruct voyeurism, explore the apparatus of the camera and my position as a maker. This empirical approach was later followed by literature research which included the male gaze theory by L. Mulvey and Freud. Through writing and practical experimentation I developed a particular film form which blends reality and fiction: a documentary based reproduction, a reenactment with a touch of fictive reality play. As individuals we are pre-programmed to be curious beings, and the explorations of these psychological human behaviours play an important role in this work. This particular investigation started from a fascination for strangers, the unknown people briefly met. As well as, often being a stranger myself, inhabiting different places. I believe that each individual is first and foremost a stranger to one another, and only later we can count bonds of togetherness and occurring alienations. These relations fascinate me as much as the act of looking, witnessing, beholding the image, ‘’stealing ‘the scene with your eyes’’. Try sitting by the window for half a day and you will notice a lot of absurd human behaviour too, as we take our behaviours for granted.

SMOKE MACHINE, video loop installation 1.31min

Smoke Machine is a collaborative video installation by Kotryna Buruckaite and Marika Vandekraats commissioned by Franc Gallery for a group exhibition In Over Our Heads. The exhibition was curated around the theme Tension, all brought together through the expressions of the pressures that both hold down and drive them. This concept became a central direction while making this work. The video installation explores our wants, our fears and the need to play as a maker. Once Kotryna and Marika were making smoke bombs with a little luck and an empty head they came up with this idea to vacuum clean the cigarettes in order to make a lot of smoke. This dull idea stayed with them for a while and they used it for the exhibition. The installation shows a vacuum cleaner with a bunch of cigarettes taped on the sucking tube. The sound reveals two beginning artists talking of what we want to, what’s precarious, and how to proceed. The video continuous with vacuuming the cigarettes for a brief moment and the everything turns to smoke. As we talk to our friends, our closest companions we tend to open up and give a permission to ask tricky questions.

1427, short film 5 min

1427 is a short film about a young man and his paranoid dream. The film takes place in a huge American-style student house, where odd things start to occur after the protagonist wakes up from a smoke alarm. Sleepy and confused he walks around the house trying to find the source of fire, but on his way around the house he keeps on meeting the same housemate. The housemate is wearing different clothes and partakes various activities, such as playing pc games and playing a guitar. The alarm in the kitchen is not there, thus the protagonist get even more confused and we follow him into this perplexing journey. First of all, while writing this film we decided to do a one take, just purely for the excitement of complexity of if and the realness. Later looking for a concept we’ve decided to use a common paranoia occurrence. People tend to be paranoid about things at times, and in this situation, paranoid about your house burning down. Leaving a gas stove on, iron, your hair straightener. Driven by these experiences we wrote a script with a touch of absurd to it. Inspired by the one take films such as Victoria, Birdman etc we thought it was a great challenge to do it ourselves.