Draft Project Proposal (Arabella)

What do you want to make?

Whilst Caves Roar, Cliffs Whisper (working title), will primarily explore how geological layers can provide a framework for storytelling, and reveal an alternative historical lens.

The material used to make this work will consist of video, sound, music, text, animation and interaction software. I also intend to involve actors in this work, and therefore I consider performance to also be part of the work. In terms of duration, I would like there to be a single channel version of the work which is no more then 40 minutes in length.

If I manage to complete the main element of this project within the planned timeline, then I would also like to make an ‘installation version’ or ‘gallery version’ of the work, which will use multiple channels as well as sculptural and live-interaction elements.

How do you plan to make it?

I plan to make this work through a series of writing, and filming periods, which follow each other and then culminate in one longer period of shooting and editing/detailing.

I have currently made a 5minute cut of footage that I took whilst shooting in the UK. Previous to this shoot was a research writing period. This rhythm is something I will continue up until the new year where I will re-asses in January the process. To be clear this process would is as so:

Researching/Writing/Shooting/Reviewing/Researching/Writing/Shooting/Reviewing…

I want to use this process, as it feels this way I stay closer to the work and also the landscape. I am not applying a story to the landscape but, hopefully, working with it.

In terms of equipment, I want to use cameras which are easily mobile (i.e. light or controlled by a monitor like a drone) and also cameras that produce images that go beyond the conventional static camera shot. These types of cameras allow me to interact with the landscape more closely. Sound is very important to this project, so each shooting period will have a day or two dedicated to sound.

What is your timetable?

27th September: feedback

Oct/Nov: review, research, write, prototype

Dec: Prep shoot, and shoot from 12th Dec-7th Jan

Jan: Shoot until 7th Jan, come back review/write.

Feb: Review and prep another week shoot starting 29th Feb- 6th March.

March: Review and prep another final week shoot 29th March-April 7th.

April: Finish shoot, get together final edit.

May: Working on final edit and execution. Thinking about istallation.

June: Exhibition prep, and final details. Plans for after.

Why do you want to make it?

This project started out from many things, but one of those (very vague) questions was - what is happening right now, and how did we get here, and how can I as an artist go about exploring this - what is my role? what can I do? So, thinking about being an artist in 2023. I was writing about the sensitivities that artists haves and how we can use these sensitivities to recognize when a narrative or an imaginary is being hijacked.

I also wanted to inhabit a place which was old, ancient, present and epic - I love books and novels that take place over seemingly long periods of time. The rock spoke to me as the most of epic of witnesses.

(More to come here)

Who can help you and how?

I have already had help from my close friend Bevis, I will continue to involve him in the project - I have saved some many to pay him. He has a drone license, and a background in lighting.

Barend has already helped me with colour grading, the chances are I’ll be using lots of different cameras and therefore there is likely to be issues with combining the material to look coherent.

Mentor group, this piece has the potential to veer off into the abstract and I would like my work to be not only about the universal and epic, but have some closeness, personal elements, to also enter the world of emotion. I think have an audience throughout the project will be helpful.

Studio meetings/Flying Ideas, a group of us have been meeting over summer and trying to hold and space and conversation for works-in-progress. We will continue this, having deadlines to show things has been very helpful.

Diego, a sound tutor from last year, I will need to speak to him about sound.

David and Cihad both have a background in installation works and I think they’ll be very useful if I get to a point where I would like to expand the work in that way.

Sabine, she has already been very helpful in terms of making my script more ‘industry standard’ - and this will help me if I go for funding or share the script with others and actors.

Relation to previous practice

One very direct way this project links to the previous practice is that I am filming and shooting around the same landscape, and origin idea. This being New Haven Beach in Sussex, and the caves I have found there. The cave’s analogy of being a hole in an impenetrable looking thing, a place for hiding and smuggling (literally goods were smuggled in these caves during the 1780s). I originally used this analogy as a lens through which I compared the tech industry and it’s hackers with the smugglers of the 1780s and the monarchy.

Further, in my text in practice I spoke about the storytelling framework the caves/geology gave me. I wrote “each scene was a geological layer in the cliff, and the cave was what made these layers visible. The cave allowed the story to be told.”. I’m now asking myself, how can I further develop this - how would the cave tell this story? What would it choose to tell, how would it speak…what would it show? These are the questions I’m now beginning with. I am building this approach around the title of Electronic Geology (this term doesn't work literally but it carries an energy I like at the moment).

There is further link to the actual process I take towards writing. I also see this geological approach as similar to my practice of wall writings. In that a rock has a gestalt thing about it, it is one thing but holds many things. So it is so when I use only one large page to record my thoughts over time.  I recently reflected on this…

“The physical fact of two ideas being placed on the same page, allows them to share an environment. They start to in a way to take on a neighborly relationship, and they quite naturally discuss. This part of the practice warrants more exploration. There’s something of a trust that happens, I trust by putting these two ideas on the page in the same environment that they will reveal to me their connection, their relationship or perhaps I just trust them to get on and co-habit.”

Choices made: Work with sound/music as an essential part of the practice Centralise and develop my writing practice. Recognize what gives me joy to do, and build my practice/workflow around that. The central element will be a film.

Relation to a larger context (NEED TO WRITE UP)

I’ve been collecting references and resources which I feel link. Key people for me are Carlos Casas, Fernand Deligny, Maria Fusco, Martin McInnes (particular most recent novel In Ascension) and Olga Tokarczuk. I’ve now been suggested a book by Clara called Critical Coasts which could be pivitol!

Here are references: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Resources

References/bibliography (same link)

https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Resources