Jujube/methods-session-11

Calendars:Networked_Media_Calendar/Networked_Media_Calendar/10-04-2019_-Event_1

The specific outcome for the RW&RM seminar of 2018-19 will be a 1500 word text which reflects on your own method and situates your work in relation to a broader artistic and cultural context.

Makings over time

documentary as medium

The main things I have been making are films. Most of them are documentaries of people and their personal stories. One of them is made from a script.

With each person in my recent documentaries, I try to create a situation in which s/he will arrive at feeling(s): of warmth, clarity, resilience. On camera I try to capture the feelings that they go through --- sadness, nostalgia, loss -- while conducting an activity. These are the feelings I go through myself. As I describe it, I realize this process of catharsis is crucial for my inquiry of creating empathy.

directing method

I have repeated a directing method for making these documentaries: I schedule an individual meeting with each of my subject, listen to what they want to share with me, and decide with them what is a situation in which they feel safe to be vulnerable. (I met my subjects (with the exceptions of Lara and Mia, who I already knew) after a performance at Garage Rotterdam. My act was to read a wikipedia list of neighborhood names of Brooklyn, during which I teared up. I then led the audience on a meditation about the space called home.)

The meeting is a important part of the process. While setting up the meetings with my subjects, I try to communicate efficiently (where, when, what expectations). When I meet them in person, I remain as open, honest and attentive as possible.

The situations I have created so far:

• take Lara to Maastunnel for the installation during Valentine's week
• go stationary shopping with Mia and filming her draw in a cafe
• follow the making process of Amy at the ceramic station
• (to happen) follow the journey of Renate from Rotterdam to the Hague, film her write a letter at James Turrell's Celestial Vault
• (to happen) follow the preparation and performance of Luis in a location to be decided
• (to happen) follow Marichél to the swimming pool, follow her shopping for spice and cook a stew

filming method

I have filmed Lara myself, but found it extremely difficult to film, record and direct at the same time. I have since changed my workflow and asked Cem and Ugo to be on the camera while focus on the sound/direction. I have also learned (perhaps informed by previous experience in theater) to trust whoever I am working with.

However, in order to develop a deeper understanding of cinematography, I am going to change my workflow again and be more involved behind the camera. For the shooting with Renate, Cem and I have divided responsibilities. He would shoot the distant takes and the environment while I will shoot close-ups as Renate writes the letter. Because it is going to one of the most vulnerable stories so far, Cem and I are going to meet Renate again before the shooting. We will discuss our approaches together, establishing boundaries, safety and trust.

abstracting narrative

The opportunity to show a film at EYE Research Lab was the starting point for me to make Seek. The starting point of the project was framed as "to use the camera as a device for meditation and synthesize the footage in a video." However, as I became more interested in the relationship between autobiographical materials and universal emotions through tales, I shifted from this originally generative approach to focus more on storytelling with pre-meditated imageries. I wrote a script before departing Rotterdam, in which I set the main scenes near a lake.

When I arrived in Veléz-Blanco, the local climates suggested something different from the lake scenes. The land was arid. There was no visible body of water. All of us at the residency were encouraged to conserve by keeping shower water in buckets and washing dishes in bins. Coming from an urban environment where water is taken for granted as part of the infrastructure, its sudden scarcity provoked new thoughts: what is the essence that I want to convey through water? Can I evoke the same message in a drastically different landscape?

To find the answers, I developed a routine. Each morning I left the dwelling and walked down into the barranco, a type of ravine formed by erosion (both by rainfall and agro-pastoral modification common in this region). I observed the weather, geology, flora and fauna with my video equipments: a DSLR camera, two lenses, a field recorder, a pair of headphones and a tripod. The barranco inspired new development of the script and became the central imagery of the video.

For the video, I collaborated with two volunteers I met at the residency, Lucy Wade and Francesco Ferrari. I recruited Lucy as the voice of the video and Francesco as the musician.

I liked the process of allowing the contingencies of the situation to shape the piece and wrote a proposal stating I would like to create a new work using that method (even though my application was not selected). The method was abstracted in one of the tutorials with Steve:

1) Abstract narrative

2) Find location

3) Improvise with the situation.

letters to Su

Another ongoing endeavor I have been taking on is an imaginary correspondence with Su, a Korean artist I met at a residency and have not contacted since the end of it. I started writing to her from the beginning of the program. I have come to realize, after writing these letters for more than half a year, that they document the more personal feelings that I could not share with anyone I'd met in Rotterdam. I included two of these letters for a recent assessment (unfortunately they were never seen because of wiki dysfunction) as a way of showing the (sometimes unknown) drive of my process. These letters might become a publication at the end of my time at PZI (or it might not see the light).

Sporadic makings

Besides the ongoing makings, I have been making things with more defined scopes. (The thematic workshops in the beginning of my Master's, especially, have led to the production of a few defined projects, such as a the focal camera and the photobook. (I have also taken on a few other projects such as a zine and a speech). [links will be added])

With the footage from Seek, I made a one-minute film called Passage.

I am currently the editor for a film titled "Maria's Sidewalk", which serves as part of the thesis of a graduating MIARD student, Beatriz.

The relationship between long- and short-term makings

With long-term makings I am able to change my methods whereas short-term, more defined projects do not afford room to try things out. In the case of the MIARD film, the emphasis is on production rather than experimentation. I struggled with the available visual footage and, after reviewing them and having a talk with Simon, decided to forego using any of the (research) footage she has collected. Instead I proposed working off of the women's accounts on their feelings during Beatriz's interviews with them. The interview that stood out to me was with a transgender woman. Because it was conducted over the phone, there was no visual image of this woman, but her voice and speech. She was articulate about her experiences with street harassment, first as a gay man, as a perceived, crossdressing man (during transition), as a cis female, and as a transgender woman. In the most recent edit I have woven together three women's stories (including the one from the transgender woman) and brought back some still shots of street footage as the background. I have a feeling that I am saving the story rather than telling it.

How did you do it? (method)

Making

Jullie (or Ambacht as the project has been referred to)

I finished making a 15-min documentary film of an artist couple in the south of Rotterdam, the owners of a cafe named Koffie & Ambacht in December 2018. To summarise the timeline: I coordinated 2 days of shooting in October (consisting of 1 full day of shooting b-roll + concert and another full day of interview, plus some meet-and-greet time). I spent two and a half weeks on editing in November and December. (In between those months I worked on other projects and did not do much about this project.)

I ended up using 25 percent or less of the footage, which, I was told, was normal for documentary. The narrative I found in the footage did correspond somehow with my intention -- emphasising the relationship between the couple in the cafe. During our interview, I had the camera running for 20 minutes in one spot and 20 minutes in another. In editing, I experimented with freeze frame resembling portraiture.

In the making process I realized I could only be invested in editing for a certain period of time. Once the trepidation of the new interface (Adobe Premier, in this case) faded, I was able to identify the usefulness of the footage and construct the narrative with the tool. This part was fine. What was difficult was that once I found the structure and had done what I considered "finessing with it," I could not stay with the footage any longer. Or it would frustrate me. I realized later this was a sign that I did not have enough footage to "push" the story to the direction. When I staged the interview I asked questions I thought would elicit a personal response, but in the end it wasn't the answers that mattered. The most interesting material was what happened in between the shots (such as when the couple teased each other).

The reason to make this film: I thought I could learn a thing or two (without being overly cynical) about the place I had just moved to through the opinionated, if not rebellious, take on the arts in Rotterdam and the Netherlands. It's also the first substantial movie I am creating. Beyond the topic, I am learn about the forms and procedures of filmmaking, which are important new knowledge to me.

Seek

The impetus for the project was to use the camera as a device for meditation and synthesize the footage in a video. As I became more interested in the relationship between autobiographical materials and universal emotions through tales, I shifted from this originally generative approach to focus more on storytelling with pre-meditated imageries. I wrote a script before departing Rotterdam, in which I set the main scenes near a lake.

When I arrived in Veléz-Blanco, the local climates suggested something different from the lake scenes. The land was arid. There was no visible body of water. All of us at the residency were encouraged to conserve by keeping shower water in buckets and washing dishes in bins. Coming from an urban environment where water is taken for granted as part of the infrastructure, its sudden scarcity provoked new thoughts: what is the essence that I want to convey through water? Can I evoke the same message in a drastically different landscape?

To find the answers, I developed a routine. Each morning I left the dwelling and walked down into the barranco, a type of ravine formed by erosion (both by rainfall and agro-pastoral modification common in this region). I observed the weather, geology, flora and fauna with my video equipments: a DSLR camera, two lenses, a field recorder, a pair of headphones and a tripod. The barranco inspired new development of the script and became the central imagery of the video.

For the video, I collaborated with two volunteers I met at the residency, Lucy Wade and Francesco Ferrari. I recruited Lucy as the voice of the video and Francesco as the musician.

I liked the process of allowing the contingencies of the situation to shape the piece and wrote a proposal stating I would like to create a new work using that method (even though my application was not selected). The method was abstracted in one of the tutorials with Steve:

1) Abstract narrative

2) Find location

3) Improvise with the situation.

Reading and writing

My core research questions up to the point are:

• How do people feel, specifically, how do people feel empathic?
• How do images carry meanings?

During IFFR, the questions grew with concerns of autobiography and the image:

• How to translate autobiographical materials into empathic matters? Perhaps through myth and tales?
• What is image capable of in conveying that intention and — in the process or as a result — creating empathy?
• Also, not at a conceptual level but an aesthetic one: I'm drawn to the mountains, seas and remote places...Why? Out of the sublime, the metaphor, the unexpected forms?

As we formed the research group, the literature we have been reading has inspired some new, perhaps more specific, questions:

• What are the psychological processes of (collective) viewing?
• What is the difference between, say, cinema and gallery (physical space), or cinema and netflix (screen space)?
• How do focus, camera movement, editing affect the viewer's thoughts and feelings?
• How can we use cinema as a space for empathy? How do interacting layers of aesthetics and narrative change the viewer's distance with what is shown on the screen?

After reading Eric Schouse's essay, Feeling, Emotions, Affect, I realize that affects closely connect to core emotions. As a person fortunate to have experienced it in therapy, I believe the acknowledgement of and clarity about core emotions will enrich and enlighten one's self. My then therapist recommended three books to me. All of them seem relevant to my recent projects (not as foreshadowing frameworks, but as an emerging pattern as I make them). The books touch on neuroscience, development psychology, psychotherapy (A General Theory of Love); suffering, revisiting the past, healing (Reconciliation); and ways to access core emotions and arriving at clarity (It's Not Always Depression). I will start to externalize these connections and position my work in the framework of affect theories.

At the beginning of the program the word "autobiography" appeared frequently in my attempts. I noted the early, loose thoughts in the page named memoir. [1] For a couple of months, the driving force of my readings was personal memories, more specifically, how my own memory (and experience) can move others. I noticed my tendency of archiving without articulating the significance of that act, or only doing so in a half-baked way. A breakthrough came when I finished the essay investigating my relationship with autobiographic work. [2] I have since shifted more definitively from my own images (words, storylines, specific events) to those of an external origin.

I briefly investigated mythology as a potential framework. After reading some contextualizing texts about myths, I found mythology's cultural indications and specific mechanisms (for example, reproduction to perpetuate in public memory) did not quite speak to what I wanted to create. I shifted my attention to tales and stories.

Relying on my experience with narrative forms (playwriting, stage storytelling), I wanted to read about realms I knew little about. The Cinematic (Documents of Contemporary Art) has introduced me to photography and film theories. I like this volume because it makes an effort to distinguish between photography and cinema, not from a technological/historical point of view, but with more in-depth analysis of each medium. I have written synopsis of the essays from which I learned.

My interest in cinematography emerges with readings in The Cinematic and the creation of Seek. I have selected my readings directing towards the specificity of the techniques and studies of cinema. Through reading Mulvey, I will continue to expand my readings of haptic aesthetics (haptic visuality by Laura Marks) and the screen as a situation.

reading film theories

I read The Cinematic, an anthology of film and photography theories, with the intention to familiarize myself with relevant film theory vocabularies. The benefit of reading the anthology is the quick access to a sizable amount of different perspectives in one single volume. The drawback, on the other hand, is the density of abstract ideas and abstraction. The anthology includes pieces of canonical texts as well as criticisms regarding these pieces. This anachronism was confusing.

Luckily, I was shooting for a video project while reading these and had a chance to contemplate the theories through doing. My script featured a voice in search of a lost past with imageries based in nature.

Discussions about certain photographic quality of cinema [cite text] and the contemplations on real versus cinema time [cite text] had an impact on me during the production.

I came to realize that I am more interested in the cinematic — movement, association, directed experience in a set time — than the photographic — the captive moment that allows pondering for as long as one wishes.

So far, theories play a few roles in my practice:

1. Theories give me a historical perspective of what has been done. I am not studying art history in any comprehensive fashion, but through theories I am gradually learning to place my works and their relevance in accordance to the form(s) I choose.

2. Theories provide soundbites for rumination. I avoid jargons in describing my work (or even writing the imaginary wall text for it). When I read jargon-sounding words, however, the terms become starting points for connecting systems of knowledge. In articulating these connections I can strive to be genuine, specific, and unpretentious.

3. The case studies from theories give me works to see/watch/research, which helps widen my perspective. The fact that some of them resonate with me more than others drive me to inquire about my own preference — visually, narratively, affectively. By reflecting on other people's work I can also be more certain about my own aesthetics and processes.

Laura Mulvey introduces me to the early feminist film theories, which is the first kind of film theory I have read. It presents me with discourses that encompass my own fields of interest and situates me more in the vast space that (film) theories occupy. Perhaps now I can see more relevance of other key texts. (She makes references to Bellour and Metz, for instance.) As I read, I am noticing more and more the way(s) people describe image and image-making.

She shows me the tenacity of feminism (how it adapts to the times, how it reflects upon itself) -- it is an illustration of that so-called frameworks for research are, and should be, malleable, depending where I am in my practice. I am not interested in using feminism in my daily language. As Susanna said, "the new feminism is humanism."

The vocabularies of gaze and spectator feel very much the product of the last era (1970's). I am not interested in framing things with vocabularies "coined" to describe a certain thought or phenomenon. I am more interested in the everyday language, especially spoken with ingenuity. There is an intelligence that comes with the everyday language, one that connects people through shared words and the feelings they evoke.

I will keep reading academic writing as long as it helps me build connections among different knowledge systems OR gives me new insight about something, however esoteric, relevant. I will set the tone of my research in an academic language. I am a conscientious about the roles of theories in my practice and do not take any theoretical text for granted without the historical and cultural context in mind.

reading films

During IFFR I chose to see films that appeared to align with a few lines of inquiries. My criteria were:

• a story based on/inspired by myth/tales/rituals
• a highly personal story
• scenes in the mountains and/or by the sea
• alluding to the meaning of images"'

I see different ways in which the image carries weight. In some cases, the image is the most charged moment of the narrative, such as the scene when the word messenger faces gun point in Pájaros de Verano. In others, the image visualises a metaphor, like the woman catching water from all directions with buckets in Pattaki. Sometimes, the image becomes part of a well-written essay, as in Above Us Only Sky.

I find sound as important, if not more, as what I see. Sounds represent a place. In Tutto l'oro Che C'è, the wild track is the main track. Sounds create silence. Examples are the forest in Tutto l'oro Che C'è and water in Pattaki. Music can often be a narrative by itself, as seen in The Last Seven Words.

Actor-directed films can lead to incredibly tender moments. In Vulnerable Histories (A Road Movie), two characters both with painful family (and/or present histories) share their own feelings towards discrimination and inequality. In this case the director's role is to create a framework to communicate that clearly and foster an environment/crew that lets things be and happen.

Relation to previous practice

In an earlier methods class, I was asked if filmmaking would be something I wanted to continue pursuing. My answer to that is: yes, and with increasing craft.

Immediately after the project I started the project for the EYE research lab, the result of which was a 3-minute-and-a-half short film. I did more preparations in terms of camera work for that movie and was able to produce images of better quality (in order to convey the message through aesthetics). This short film was based on a script and a filming process responsive to the residency site. I was able to do many takes of the same subject/scene and experiment with different combinations. There was more repetition in the process, unlike the documentary.

How can I produce with a sureness towards the camera and ease with subject, in documentary settings or not? Practice (holding the camera, tripod, talking with the subject) seems to be a constant.

What and why do you want to make next?

In my next projects I want to be better at creating moving images. I will invest more in understanding and practicing cinematography. (See Jujube/cinematography for concrete learnings.)

A good intention will never come across in distracting camera work (e.g. the excessive shake in The Day I Lost My Shadow). I want to avoid abstract aesthetics when something is just abstract for the sake of it (or some lofty intellectualism in the name of poetry... enough of those random and self-indulgent manipulation of the 16mm films in the shorts from History Deletes Itself).

References

See Bibliography and IFFR log