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Notes by Clara (25/01/23)

What have you been making

This past weeks I have been mainly been editing a short 4 mins video, for a presentation at the Eye museum. In the video I used an audio recording of a friend from several years ago. Combined with another language being visuals. Energetic video, partially violent.

Starting point when working with Yalou, finding new methods that make one feel good. Sharing a conversation. Private female conversations and stories. Where one can find several layers. The have not been seen as important. Now in the second film the conversation is the main point.

Connecting audio recording as letters. Similar feeling. Listened to recordings and focussed on audio talking about feeling good in relation to creative expression and sexuality. The way she speaks being very intriguing.

A new way of reflecting on conversations ans how to visualise them. Something in the act of sharing a private moment.

Dislocating the nature of a conversation. Connected to playfulness. Change the context, playing with it. The conversation itself does not change, but the framework. Gives a feeling of freedom to try different formal aspects, move around and mix

What do you want to do next

Reflect more. Now is time for reflection, reading and writing. Feminism in history. Female voices. How were women silenced. Start a diary again.

Practically speaking; continue editing and find another way to approach the same video. Playing with the choreography of video and the subtitles. Realised, that there are many aspects. Did not want subtitles at first, but now changed mind. Importance of accessibility that should always be present. reflect on this aspect. I would like to address that always having to be there.

Work in recording studio, speak directly to images in an absurd way. Develop this more. Reflect more on interested in this.

Why do you want to focus on that

Feel a need to explore more the visual language in editing. making different versions of the same video. Share it with others in the master. Which can help as an exercise. How does the rhythm, the visuals work. How does it function to show a video of a foreign language.

Technically and content.

Time of rest after finishing a work and take time to reflect. So much has happened as you were just focussed on doing. Find unconscious/impulsive choices and look at those now. Different languages being actual languages bur also visual languages.

need to study for that more to get in depth. But yes, language is important.

Would like to approach everything with humour.

How do different languages speak to each other.

Notes for the Eye (nov-dec 2022)

# PEEPHOLE

I can't see well, as if I've fallen asleep, I'm not wearing my glasses, I'm waking up, I'm in a dream.
Different places where the image is articulated
Microscopic image

# TRICKERY / RECOGNITION / STRANGENESS
hiding something in plain sight
a play with the surrounding of the message
a journey to the recognition of the format
in what I'm telling you I'm already telling you something (to influence the rhetoric of the image?)
directing an intimate message to the audience is also a trickery
why do you want to confuse the viewer?

# "THE SUBJECTIVE MEDIATOR"

Something of what I say has to do with her, my character is imbued in what I say. It is transformed with each modification.  
There is a translation of the message that travels in time
Like someone who paints a portrait because he likes it, very personal.

# EPISTOLARY SENSE

A message that transforms itself and is transmitted again
A perfect dramaturgy
The material is like a photo
The beginning of a story
There is a transcription 
Interview with a writer

# SYNESTHESIA

Mental images
The image is not a translation but it is a mattress
Synchronized sound
Rhythm, plastic resource synesthesia

# META

The nature of light has blurred edges where you cannot see well
A journey into format recognition
In what I tell you I already tell you something
Format recognition
"Message recognising its medium"
In black: travel to the bottom of the ocean where light is lost

Notes after tutorials (January 23)

# about male gaze
# cinema as an ambiguous image
# intimate archive, stories that have never created "history"
# random archive as universal, anonymous material

# about subtitles:
as extra elements that create content
about its hierarchy: visuals as primary element and speech as second element ?
subtitles as hints
look for a balance

# detailed, precise, demanding
# decision about losing some meaning
# the visuals feel quite confidence
# the way she speaks is informal, but not sure about the receiver
# about an internal process / journey
# about accesibility:
coreography, switches of the attention, timing and pace, the question: what is my compromise?; talking about "Looking for horses", also what is the main quality?
all the languages have political implications

# I am creating my own language, new definition, about defining and redefining
# about translation
# the need of define the work for my self, referring back, fundamentally concerned

# it would be also interesting to expand and look for other ways of engagement
# the performative as a gesture, requires action
# think about the multiple outcomes
# talking about the device

References

1. Martin Arnold
2. Veronica Jansen (lo ambiental, situaciones creadas, climáticas, algo monumental - pero también "le flou artistique" = lo borroso artístico, no precisamente bueno)
3. Test Bechdel
4. Gloria Ansaldua (autohistorias)
5. Carole Schniemann (buscar en ubu web)
6. Omer Fast
7. Laure Prouvost
8. Norman McLaren

Concepts

1. Aischrologia leading to catharsis (purification of the soul): women free to express the weird noises only on behalf of the city
2. Sophrosyne is a combination of moderation, self-control, and temperance. This ancient virtue can act as a guide to better manage our emotions.
3. Switch in private - public space
4. "Agonistic pluralism" by Chantal Mouffe as a type of democracy that acknowledges the multiplicity of voices and values. (...) consensus cannot exist because that implicates forms of exclusion (...)
5. Hysteria
6. From antiquity female voices were associated with the inner body as un "ugly" form of articulation affecting the way women could speak in public up to the present day.
7. Association of female voices with bestiality, associated with direct emotional vocalization. The continuity of their speech, which connects their inside truths directly to the outside of their body is confusing for men
8. The idea of the continuity of speech that has been related to the two-mouthed female body, with "upper" and "lower" mouths. Breaking the dichotomy of the "inside" and the "outside" body, rational and irrational speech, embodied and disembodied voice.

First draft

Anne Carson: "A woman would expose her inside truths that were supposed to be kept private. "By projections and leakages of all kinds -somatic, vocal, emotional, sexual- females expose or expend what should be kept in" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129); this reveals society's fear of death, blood, darkness, birth and therefore, the female body (...) one of the principal characteristics of sound is its unique relationship with interiority. (...)

What have you been making?

This last month I've been editing a 4 minutes video called "Are we having a conversation?", a synaesthetic work in which the visuals accompany the sound, resulting in a flickering, fast-moving image.. I decided the title one month ago and I don't know if it fits now with the content but also seems to be quite ambiguous and open as the final piece.

How did you do it?

It has been a project with a lot of steps, and still being. First of all, I knew that I wanted to work with round and cropped visuals, using the black screen as a white canvas to paint. I also wanted the image to respond to the sound, so there would only be visual information when there was sound. I started to think about the project from this formal decision. Thereafter I started thinking about the audio content (suggestions). I tried different readings from books related to image making, the invisible, the forbidden... but it didn't work. Then I started listening to voice recordings sent by different friends and making notes of them. From this year till 2018. I suddenly was captivated by the nature of the messages and the conversations and the topics we discussed, some of them were more spontaneous and others worked for me as a "sound letters" in which we told each other stories, experiences that have happened to us. I found a message sent from my friend Isa in the summer of 2019 in which she shares with me an experience she had while reading a novel with her sister. She links the creation process with sexual empowerment. She tells me about it as an amazing and fun discovery that gives her a lot of energy and joy. I decided to use that message because in a way it connects me with what I feel now in the present, how body and mind wellbeing are related to creation. The second step was to work on the script. The message was quite long, around 8 minutes, so I had to removed almost half of it. I preserved the parts which seem more open to me and removed the most specific ones (for example she addressed the message to me, she talked about the specific book and also the influence in her singing practice (she is a singer)). Once I had the audio "edited" I worked on the visuals. I wanted to use random footage from different worlds: medicine, scientific, the body (inner body and "physical body") and the universe. I used this kind of footage in the editing, I didn't care a lot about the content itself because it easily gets lost in the pase of the video, but I think it also acts as a resonance of the speech, as a subconscious visual impression while the speech goes on.

Relation to previous practice In November I was working in a project which doesn't have a name yet. It is composed by of a series of photographs completely or partially covered with paint, more or less opaque. There are four A4 size images completely covered in black and pink and 8 others of different sizes partially covered. The paint can be scraped off, revealing the image underneath. The images below are unretouched fashion photographs, which have never been published on the internet. This is an experimental approach to the research I am working in now, which in a broad sense is related to the unknown and the things that are about discovering. It could also be related to the subconscious, with the discovery of what lies underneath. Somehow this images seem to work with the same concepts through a different approach and technique. The subject is not the same either but the approach is.

What do you want to make next I would like to reflect more in this practice, "dissect" the different elements and interests that I have and work on that in a more rational aspects perhaps, I don't know. I believe that thinking and designating the different layers would be useful to address the following practice. This could be the layers I have for now: - The source as the voice, the source as the image (as meta) - The content: the private, the forbidden - The plastic: the aesthetic, the abstract

The next work I am thinking of also revolves around topics as intimacy, privacy or unknown. I will start experimenting with recording my own voice using scripts from different sources ranging from public to private environments, conversations I recorded years ago in a business context, conversations with friends and also from Spanish TV archive.

Why do you want to make it?

Relation to a larger context

References I am thinking about the thesis by Angeliki Diakrousi "Let's talk about unspeakable things" in which she addresses women voices

Notes by Yalou and Arabella

Ar. choices of languages interesting "visuals accompanying", quite radical, quite resistance to ocular centric, what "letters" means, "black screen" as a white canvas, what does it mean?

Y. tell little more about previous creations. There is no need but she would love, curiosity.

Ar. from painting - I didn't care a lot about the content itself. She goes against that. It feels the maker discovered the sublayered later on in the process. Defining a little more about the subconscious, is it a dream? what is that? feeling unconnected. its not about caring, is about no controlling"

Y. Is it associative,

Ar. What reference does she have related to the subconscious as it is a big thing.

Y. What is behind the cuote? Is it a part of the references?

Ar. So many interesting definitions that the maker could make.

Y. To have the images in the text would make a difference

Ar. Visual accompany the sound, feels quite feminist, how isn't seen, feminism about recognising. The preservation and removing, why? there are very specific choices, so why?, why? is the biggest questions in the text. There might be a big why in the text.

Y. Spelling things incorrect. From this year till: from 2018 til a month ago rather than one month 4' min. video 4 minutes video

Ar. Still being, where is that? I love this phrase, STILL BEING

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