Rodolfo's first draft TOP

1. What have you been making? / 2. How did you do it? (method)

In my last and-or current project (Your Presence Was Cancelled - YPWC) I have been, mostly, looking at and working with a still image, scanning fragments - and possible meanings - of it.

The project emerged after focusing on and writing about memories related to the death of my grandparents. After going through my personal archive,I realized I had several photos from the day after my grandmother passed away last year and I decided to pick one and work with it.

At the beginning the main goal for the project was to create a short movie (about three and a half minutes), based on a still image, that I would be able to screen at the EYE Research Labs last February. There were, frok the outset, three main components that I had to work with: the image - how to make it move? how to edit? how can this work visually? -, the text - what and how do I wanna tell this story? - and the sound - do I want music? do I want a voice over?

In addition to these doubts that highlight predominantly technical issues, there were countless other questions that arose throughout the work process, such as: What’s in the picture? What does the picture mean for me? What can the picture mean for others? Is the picture a selfie? What’s a selfie? What was I looking at? Why did I cover my face? Was I trying to pose for the picture? Was I looking at myself on my phone screen? Was I listening to music? If yes, to which one? Can I get this information? What other sounds were there on the train? Could I (still) hear them? Were people talking? Was the seat comfortable? What did I have inside of my backpack? Can I recreate it? What do I actually remember? What did I have in my lap? Why did I decide to take this photo? How was I feeling? What happened before? What happened after? Where was I going? From where was I coming from? Where was the train? Was the train moving or standing still? How’s the configuration of the space where I am? What’s that space? Is the space pleasing? What are the colors of this space? Does it even matter? Do I want to show the real colors of the picture? Is it important? Or is it just an aesthetic/visual choice? Is it possible to separate me from space? Can I talk about space without talking about me? Which are the limits of my understanding of space? Who else was in the space? Who is this person? Who is this woman? Is she a ghost? What is she doing? Where is she from? How old is she? Does she have kids? What does she do? Does she work? Is she unemployed? Is she retired? Is she on a holiday? Is she married? Is she single? Is she divorced? Is she a widow? What’s her biggest dream? How does she feel now? Where is she going? What does she see from her seat? Did she notice me? What does she think about me? Could I be her son? Could I be her grandson? What would we talk about? Would we talk in Spanish? Would we have interests in common? Would I like her? Would she like me? Is it possible for us to share space again (somewhere in the future)? If so, where, how and when? Would I tell her about this project? Will she know about this project? Would she like it? Will someone like it? Will I like it? Is this worth it? What is this about? Is it about me? Is it about my grandmother? Is it about loss? Is it about memories? Is this about void? Is it all and nothing at the same time? Do I have any clue? Will I - at some point? What am I actually doing? How does (temporal/spatial) distance influence the way we deal with processes of disconnection, loss, grief? What is time? What is space? What is distance? How does distance translate into time? How does distance translate into space? How does distance translate into our relationships? What’s the role of distance in our relationships? Do relationships need distance? What does distance create? What does distance add? What does distance subtract? What can we gain through distance? What do we lose through distance? Are we always losing through distance? What’s the color of distance? Does it have a color? Is distance poetry? Can it be poetry? Can we create poetry through distance? Or we can just create it through closeness? Does distance create a feeling of being close? Of being closer? Does it increase what we feel? Or does it decrease it? Is distance shallow and superficial? Or the other way around?

So far, I don’t think that I am able to answer to most of these questions - and probably that was not even the aim of the work - but I think that the outcome of the project for the EYE is the result of a set of decisions that, back then, felt right for me and that made me connect and feel something towards the work that I created.

However, after the screening at the EYE, I felt that there was still room for the project to grow, and most important: to breath and gain new dimensions. So I decided to create an extended version of the movie, in order to create a bigger space for the image and the story to land. In parallel to this, and since I had written a lot during the process of creating the first video, it seemed interesting to me to put these texts together and work on a kind of publication/zine that would add, through words, new layers and perspectives to the image.

The different visions, perspectives and layers that I have been adding to this work seem to me to be the reflection of an attempt to understand a complex and voracious reality, difficult to fit into a fragment that is, in itself, an image.

3. Relation to previous practice

As Loss, a project that I developed before starting this program, YPWC is the result of a personal (grief) experience, which aims to process an emptiness/void created by our capacity of relating/connecting/love. Some months ago I wrote that Loss “made me connect not just with my inner reality with my feelings, but also with the way the world looked like on that day”. This made me realise that I did exactly the same with YPWC and that throughout my recent works, which always ended up arising as a consequence or from a personal experience, I always placed myself, initially, at the center of the action. But during the creation process, this center shifts and allows me to understand the complexity of what and who surrounds me. I have also understood that if this personal, almost visceral connection between me and the work doesn’t exist, it doesn’t make sense for me to create something.

4. What do you want to make next? / 5. Why do you want to make it?

Interview notes

Working on EYE project, an extended version of it, longer, more time for images and informations. Play with the sound, music. Abstract experience of the picture. How the ghost is reading the space. Start with personal experience, how to understand certain situations.

What is the difference between longer version and original one? Too fast, to give time to understand the texts and images.

What you don’t want to say anymore? The answer about the place. Not too straight forward. Give room to viewers to understand the image by themselves.

Soundtrack? Only the metro sound, some atmospheric vibe. The previous music was too dominant.

FIRST FULL DRAFT

At what distance does life appear or disappear?

Or I could also ask you:

At what distance does art (or an artistic practice) appear or disappear?

The first question was lost in my (never ending) phone notes and travelled from there to this text, which may be, eventually, an (hopefully successful) attempt of trying to answer to the second one.I will probably come to the end of this text and I won’t even come close to answering to something, since what I do best is catalog questions and doubts. However, I think that starting by explaining what I’ve been doing (what, how and why), how this relates to my previous practice, what I intend to do next (and why), and how all of this relates to a larger context, can help clarify who I am as an artist - or a maker, I may prefer this word.

“Words and measures do not give life; they merely symbolize it” Alan Watts

Your Presence Was Cancelled (YPWC) is my current project and is (or was), in essence, a short movie that I did for the EYE Research Labs, which pretends to explore and scan fragments - and possible meanings - of a still image that I shot last year.
The project emerged after focusing on and writing about memories related to the death of my grandparents. After going through my personal archive,I realized I had several photos from the day after my grandmother passed away last year and I decided to pick one and work with it. I wanted to add movement to it and there were from the outset, three main components that I had to work with: the image - how to make it move? how to edit? how can this work visually? -, the text - what do I wanna tell about this story and how? - and the sound - do I want music? do I want a voice over?
In addition to these doubts that highlight predominantly technical issues, there were countless other questions that arose throughout the work process, from which I would like to highlight the following ones: Can I separate me from space? Can I talk about it without talking about myself? How does (temporal/spatial) distance influence the way we deal with processes of disconnection, loss, grief?
The outcome of the project for the EYE is a three minutes and a half short movie that navigates through a picture, supported by a text that narrates the story of the image and accompanied by music and sounds related to the space depicted in the picture.

“The abstract space that grief generates is often marked by an absence of language. Individuals and communities pass through the unspeakable consequences of loss and can emerge transformed, redefined, reprogrammed. Results are unpredictable; the void opened up by loss can be filled by religion, nihilism, militancy, benevolence—or anything.” Taryn Simon

As Loss, a photography project that I developed before starting this program, YPWC is the result of a personal (grief) experience, which aims to process an emptiness/void created by our capacity of relating/connecting/love. Some months ago I wrote that Loss “made me connect not just with my inner reality with my feelings, but also with the way the world looked like on that day”. This made me realise that I did exactly the same with YPWC and that throughout my recent works, which always ended up arising as a consequence or from a personal experience, I always placed myself, initially, at the center of the action. But during the creation process, this center shifts and allows me to understand the complexity of what and who surrounds me. I have also understood that if this personal, almost visceral connection between me and the work doesn’t exist, it doesn’t make sense for me to create something.

“You didn’t photograph it, because you didn’t think it was worth it. And now it’s too late, that moment has evaporated. But another one has arrived, instantly. Now. Because life is flowing through and around us, rushing onwards and onwards, in every direction.” Paul Graham

I want to continue to work on YPWC and expand the narrative around it, opening the door to new perspectives and points of view. This way, I am currently working on an extended version of the short film that I did for the EYE Research Labs, in order to create a bigger space for the image and the story to land. I would like to explore an (even more) abstract journey through the image, with the support of visuals, text and different approaches to sound. Ideally I would also like to give more room to the viewers to understand the picture (and probably the story) by themselves, through, above all, a significant reduction of text in the moving piece.

In parallel to this, and since I had written a lot during the process of creating the first video, I want to work on a publication/zine that combines texts that I wrote during the process of realising the first film, and new texts, capable of introducing new perspectives and views about the moment depicted in the image.

By expanding the project in all these directions, it feels like I am adding faces to parallelelipid whose final shape I don’t know, but if I ask myself: why am I atually doing this? and-or where is this taking me? I may not be super sure and clear about the answer, but I think that this way of working, of adding layers to the project, constitutes not just several moments of reflection and questioning, but also, or above all, an attempt to undertand a complex and voracious reality, difficult to fit into a fragment that is, in itself, an image.

(Add: shot more-analog-expanded cinema)

References

- First Poem Piece, Bruce Nauman, 1968 - Sections of a Happy Moment, David Claerbout,2007 - Take Care of Yourself, Sophie Calle 2007 - A Shimmer of Possibility, Paul Graham, 2007 - The Solitude of Ravens, Masahisa Fukase, 1991 - Salut les Cubains, Agnès Varda, 1963 - Virxilio Vieitez - John Hilliard - Duane Michals

Bibliography

- Watts, A. (1951) The Wisdom of Insecurity - Barthes, R. (1982) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography - Graham, P. (2009) “Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult” (2009) - The Silence of the Lens, David Claerbou (2016)