Tessel-project proposal

Elck syn waerom (Each his/her Why)

A video work about the art of living seen through the eyes of women named Tessel (who were at the celebration of the 100th year birthday of Dutch poet Maria Tesselschade in 1994)

Project proposal 18-11-2021

What do you want to make?

In 1993 my parents read a small article in the newspaper. It was a call to all Tessel's to come together and celebrate the 100th-year birthday of the Dutch poet Maria Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher (Amsterdam, 1594 - 1649). I was 12 years old and went with my mother on March 19th 1994 to this celebration on the Muiden castle (castle and museum in Muiden, Noord-Holland province). Twenty-seven years later I have a list of all Tessel's who were present that day. How are they doing? What are they doing? And why are they doing what they do? Questions I am always interested in.

Maria Tesselschade was also a singer and a glass engraver. She was unique at that time because she dwelt at the Muiden castle where in the first half of the 17th century the famous poets Vondel, Bredero, Constatijn Huygens and PC Hooft would gather, also known under the name the Muiderkring. Her father was a fisherman and on the night he discovered that his wife was pregnant he had a great loss of one of his fishing boats near the Island Texel. He decided to name his daughter Tesselschade (Tessel Loss). I admire Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher for her personal courage, her wayward way of life and her talent in many fields. She was a good singer, musician (luit, violin, klavecimbel), poet and had a good way to express herself in words. As a woman she was way ahead of her time. Her moto was’ Elck sijn waerom” which means freely translated ‘Each has his/her why in life’.

I want to make a video work consisting of a combination of interviews with Dutch women named Tessel who were at the Tesselday, visuals of glass engravings and audio of the poems and interviews. I want to make a video installation with multiple screens and would also like to use the material to make a single screen version. In this project I want to explore the filming method I developed during my time at the Pzwart (which I call macro landscapes) in combination with images of the women I interview. In this project I will also investigate my research question: How do I bring the documentary narrative together with my 'macro landscapes?

Why do you want to make it?

In 1994 I was invited to celebrate Tesselschade’s 100th birthday at the Muiden castle. Together with 100 other Tessel’s we explored Tesselschade’s life at the castle. I have a list of the names of the 100 Tessel’s present that day. This list is my point of departure. I am going to contact Tessel’s from that list to interview them.

Article in the paper about the Tessel day
First page of list of 100 Tessels
Photograph of the 100 Tessel

Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher was far ahead of her time. She surrounded herselfs with other Dutch poets and was a writer herself. That was unfortunately rare for the time. Mostly in the literature she is associated with female independence of mind and creativity. For me she is a model for contemporary womanhood and is an inspiration for myself as a Dutch female artist trying to develop a practice. All my life I have to explain my name, in particularly to Dutch people. Although the name is nowadays more common, people still make jokes about it because they associate it immediately with the Island Texel. I grab this moment to tell them about Maria Tesselschade. In the Netherlands several streets are names Tesselschadestraat or Tesselschadelaan. Besides that, this project is of relevance for me because I want to unite my deep interest in other people and their stories with my own filming method.

How do you plan to make it?

I will start by researching further the person, life and poems of Maria Tesselschade. I also want to visit a glass engraver and make images of the process. I have already started to search for Tessels from the list. One Tessel lives in my neighborhood. I will contact her in the next two weeks and will interview her. She will be my testcase. I will interview and film the woman in their natural surroundings. Besides working on the project, I will keep making experiments in the manner of the macro videos I have been making. Experiments with the images I already have on multiple screens. But I also want to experiment with my filming method, the macro landscapes I call them now. I will look for abstract moving images to film, combined with more realistic images. A few weeks ago I did an experiment, see here a sketch: https://youtu.be/zQo54_Pq3tY My method here consists of going to a place (visiting the AZC), shoot small videos of details in the room and tape a conversation with the person (refugee Samson) in that place.

First Tessel to visit, lives in my neighbourhood
Tessel van Aalst is also first on the list

What is your timetable?

I will use November and December to research the topic. Read the books about Maria Tessel Schade Roemer Visscher and study her poems. I will also shoot in the coming weeks one testcase with one Tessel. In November, December and January I will do experiments with imagemaking, also for my thesis. In December and January I will also reach out to Tessels and make appointments for shooting. I will start by looking on Facebook for the Tessels and also put an advert on the same medium. I was named after Tessel Blok (a welknown Dutch radiojournalist), maybe she can help me to make the search more known. February and March I will collect the images and do the interviews. In May 2022 I will start editing the collected images. Mix and remix the images. Explore how it works when I put the images on multiple screens. I will also start editing the sound of the interviews and try to work on the sound(scape).

Who can help you and how?

I hope to find somebody who makes glass engravings and who is willing to make a works especially for me and my camera. I already reached out to a few woman throught social media. I also want to find somebody who is a master in calligraphy (the art of writing, something Tesselschade did while she stayed at the Muiden Castle). I need somebody to help me with good quality audio. On November 19th a friend and former colleague (Ton Henkens) will look at my recording materials and we will check how I can improve my sound recordings. Besides that, I also want to work in the editing process with an audio technician (Laurens Palsgraaf) and a muscician (Tom Swart).

Relation to previous practice

As a videographer I am always looking for the story and how to choose my shots and decoupage to fit the story the best. Most of my assigned video work is story driven. During the years I developed a specific filming method containing series of small clips, filmed (extreme) close-up, showing colors, textures and movement (see instagram.com/tesselschmidt). I call them now macro landscapes. Most of the clips I use as visuals for music performances. But I would like to find a way to unite these tactile images with telling stories. Is it possible to make an image driven documentary work using my filming method? When do I loose the spectator? How can I immerse non-fiction stories? And can I make a work in which the story and the aesthetics of the images are equal? My main research question for my thesis is therefore: How do I bring the documentary narrative together with my 'macro landscapes'? This research is of relevance for me because I want to unite my deep interest in other people and their stories with my own macro filming method. How do I describe my filming method and what are the ‘rules” for my kind of framing, perspective and camera movement?

Before entering the Piet Zwart Institute I made a work filmed in the carwash. The chosen frame and perspective create a new world within the frame.

I also experimented with filming shadowflicker on my walls at home caused by the blades of a typical Dutch windmill in my garden.

                               I have been working on a treatment in which I tried to unite the images of the shadows with stories of people who suffer from shadowflicker 
                               in their homes. I have not finished this work yet.

During my first year at Piet Zwart I bought a macro lens to get even closer to my subjects and made some experiments with it. I made a video work with buttermilk dripping down a surface creating an image that brings the viewer to a secluded place in the snow. With this work I also experimented with sound. I started with adding music, but that made the work too bombastic. I searched for sounds of ice, melting ice and ice floes and edited under the film. That worked out very well. Especially when the video was shown in Eye museum on the big screen.

I also filmed bath foam with my macro lens. I love the structure of the foam and it’s popping and often assembling bubbles. I put my camera in front of a small amount of foam and kept filming to see what happens. In the first video the auto focus was on so the camera starts later on focusing on the curtains. A surprising moment! In the second video I made a set with very small bubbles who in 30 minutes start sticking together more and more and becoming bigger bubbles. At the end you see the wonderful structure of the bubbles. This work is still in progress.

Last year I was involved in a theatre project with refugees who live in my neighborhood. I started to interview them and tried to catch their emotions around the trapped situation they are in without filming their faces directly. I filmed with my macro lens very close to the skin (Samson’s hand) and in the edit experimented with more screens (triptych) in one frame. I used their voices as a voice over. This led to a series of very short clips.

In the summer of 2020 I did a testshoot with fisherman. I filmed the fisherman waiting to catch a fish and catching a fish. I am now working on a proposal for the municipality of Utrecht to get the project commissioned. Another attempt to express a feeling of a situation (being in lockdown with my son at home) in a video work is Kid. I made close images of my son’s toys (toys that have movement) and mixed the images and original sounds in a triptych projected on cloth diapers hanging the wall. Video Kid1 is what the viewer would see in a exhibition. Video Kid2 is the images that is being projected.

My last experiment was

So distilling the elements from my previous work into a few words it would be: Neighborhood, Macro images, people’s story’s, emotions, new landscapes, importance of the still frame, let it happen inside the frame. Expressing a feeling of a situation. Triptych. Making a set-up with a material.

Above

In the proposed work I want to make a combination of real stories by woman, poetry by Tesselschade, images of glass engravings and sound. I tried to explore this way of working already a little bit with the clips I made with refugees, especially because I was not allowed to film their faces. The challenge is to look for images that complement the stories and express the emotions from the stories. I decided not to go on with depicting the stories of refugees for my final project because I needed more time to get my intentions right because the topic is very fragile. On my wiki I uploaded some new experiments I shot with Samson at the refugee home were he still lives calles Swing 1, Swing 2 and Swing 3: User:Tessel

Relation to a larger context

In this project I can work on telling a story that is close to me and explore my working method. I think that this project can really help me find my own voice and empower me and other women (and men). At the end we are all humans with the same insecurities, problems and guilty pleasures as everybody in the past, the now and the future. 1800/1900 life was not easy, especially when you were a woman. Tesselschade got the oppurtunity to indulge herself in the art of writing and talking about art. In this pandemic of covid times are also not easy. How is everybody coping with this and what can we learn from poetry in the past? To develop a new poetic language for the time we are living in.(this part needs overthinking)

References

Morley, S., The simple truth: The Monochrome in Modern Art, Reaktion Books, 2020

Rieser, M. & Zapp, A., New media cinema/art/narrative, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002

Books on Tesselschade:

My own personal archive

Een onwaerdeerlycke vrouw. Brieven en verzen van en aan Maria Tesselschade

Maria Tesselschade Roemer Visschersdr – 1918 (1ste druk)

Smits-Veldt, M.B., Maria Tesselschade: Leven met talent en vriendschap, Walburg Pers, 1994

Own archive, collected by my mom around the Tesselday at the Muiderslot castle

Websites on Tesselschade: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessel_(voornaam)

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Tesselschade_Roemers_Visscher

https://www.literatuurgeschiedenis.org/schrijvers/maria-tesselschade-roemersdochter-visscher

https://www.dbnl.org/auteurs/auteur.php?id=viss002

https://tesselschade.nl/

Docu Het muiltje van Maria Tesselschade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j5ZGthakw8

[Steve sums up: OK. The proposal is much stronger now, but you need to affirm all the great work you have been making over the last year. Do not ignore or minimise its importance; it has a direct relation to your proposed work; and the proposed work is a development on what went before. Good work. ill give more feedback on Monday AM. ]

PROJECT PROPOSAL 08-11-2021

TESSEL LOSS A video work about being a woman in the contemporary time.

=== What do you want to make? ===

I want to make a work around the Dutch female poet Maria Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher. She was also a singer and glassengraver in the 17th century. She was unique at that time because she dwelt at the Muiderslot with famous poets Vondel, Bredero, Constatijn Huygens and PC Hooft. Her father was a fisherman and in the night he discovered that his wife was pregnant he had a great loss of one of his fisherboats near the Island Texel. He decided to name his daughter Tesselschade (Tessel Loss).

I want to make a work consisting of a combination of stories by Dutch women named Tessel, visuals of glass engravings and audio of the poems and interviews. I want to make a video installation with multiple screens but it can also become a film in the end. In this project I want to explore my filming method (macro video’s) in combination with images of the woman I interview.

=== How do you plan to make it?

I have this idea for a month now and decided this week to carry through with this idea. I will start by researching the person, life and poems of Maria Tesselschade. I also want to visit a glass engraver and make images of the process. I have already started to collect Tessel’s. I will make a potential list of women I want to interview and start working on a list of questions. I need to explore what I want to talk about with them and what the work addresses. I will interview and film the woman, maybe in a studio setting. Besides working on the project I will keep doing some experiments with my style(also for my thesis). Experiments with the images I already have on multiple screens. But I also want to experiment with my filming method. I will look for abstract moving images to film, combined with more realistic images. Few weeks ago I did an experiment, see here a sketch: https://youtu.be/sP00VzRK8b4 My method here consists of going to a place (visiting the AZC), shoot small video’s of details in the room and tape a conversation with the person (refugee Samson) in that place.

=== What is your timetable?===

I will use November to research the topic and think about what the work is about. In November and December I also want to do some experiments with imagemaking, also for my thesis. In January I will reach out to Tessels and make appointment for shooting. February and March I will collect the images and do the interviews. In April 2022 I will start editing the collected images. Mix and remix the images. Explore how it works when I put the images on multiple screens. I will also start editing the sound of the interviews and try to work on the sound(scape).

=== Why do you want to make it? ===

If there is one topic that is close to me, it is this topic. The last months I discovered that life became more social again because I had to explain my name more often to people. I did not do that for a year. I myself was named after Dutch journalist Tessel Blok but as a female artist I feel connected to Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher. In 1994 I was invited to celebrate Tesselschade’s 100th birthday at the Muiderslot. Together with 100 other Tessel’s we explored Tesselschade’s life at the castle. I admire this woman for her personal courage, her wayward way of life and her talent in many fields. She was a good singer, musician (luit, violin, klavecimbel), poet and had a good way to express herself in words. As a woman she was way ahead of her time. Her moto was’ Elck sijn waerom” which means freely translated ‘This is how I interact with friends’.

=== Who can help you and how?===

I hope to find somebody who makes glass engravings and who is willing to make a works especially for me and my camera. I also want to find somebody who is a master in calligraphy (the art of writing, something Tesselschade did while she stayed at the Muiderslot). I need somebody to help me with good quality audio. On November 19th a friend and former colleague (Ton Henkens) will look at my recording materials and we will check how I can improve my sound recordings. Besides that, I also want to work in the editing process with an audio technician (Laurens Palsgraaf) and a muscician (Tom Swart). Maybe I should look at female technicians and musicians for the project.

=== Relation to previous practice===

Most of my previous practice is documentary filmmaking and video art. Both genres will come together in this project. I want to make a combination of real stories by woman, poetry by Tesselschade, images of glass engravings and sound. I tried to explore this way of working already a little bit with the clips I made with refugees, especially because I was not allowed to film their faces. The challenge is to look for images that complement the stories and express the emotions from the stories.

=== Relation to a larger context===

In this project I can work on telling a story that is close to me and explore my working method. I think that this project can really help me find my own voice and empower me and other women (and men). At the end we are all humans with the same insecurities, problems and guilty pleasures as everybody in the past, the now and the future.

===

References/bibliography===

Morley, S., The simple truth: The Monochrome in Modern Art, Reaktion Books, 2020

Rieser, M. & Zapp, A., New media cinema/art/narrative, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002

Books on Tesselschade:

Een onwaerdeerlycke vrouw. Brieven en verzen van en aan Maria Tesselschade

Maria Tesselschade Roemer Visschersdr – 1918 (1ste druk)

Smits-Veldt, M.B., Maria Tesselschade: Leven met talent en vriendschap, Walburg Pers, 1994

Own archive, collected by my mom around the Tesselday at the Muiderslot castle

Websites on Tesselschade: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessel_(voornaam)

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Tesselschade_Roemers_Visscher

https://www.literatuurgeschiedenis.org/schrijvers/maria-tesselschade-roemersdochter-visscher

https://www.dbnl.org/auteurs/auteur.php?id=viss002

https://tesselschade.nl/

Docu Het muiltje van Maria Tesselschade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j5ZGthakw8

Websites on glass engraving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDWXjAnawcQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6R-RH_essQ

Extra

https://www.vprogids.nl/2021/45/inhoud/artikelen/p25-Eva-met-Eva-s-vergelijken.html

Steve feedback and notes

PROJECT PROPOSAL 08-11-2021

[Hi Tessel.

Thanks for posting the draft. It is well structured and clearly laid out. Your proposal evokes a visually rich project. It is also evident that the proposal as it stands represents a recent decision. In the edit below I have set myself two task

1) of anticipating what my colleagues may make of it.

2) making an edit which speaks to the points that may come up

Baring in mind I have not spoken to my colleagues about your project, I would anticipate the following points coming up:

1) The choice of women called Tessel seems arbitrary- the name in itself does not define the personality of the person you interview. So, why this name? Why not make a film about red-headed people or left-handed people?

If you were to interview red-headed or left-handed people the interview would centre around the experience of left-handedness or red-headedness. But what common experience brings the Tessels together?

On careful reading I see that the aim is to find commonality through the name. What is the geographical, biographical commonality of their name?. I have made an edit that moves the proposal in that direction but even after I moved some things around there remains a question of substance- you have to be clear about what unique element is brought by possessing the name Tessel. We need to discuss this further, I think.

2) The second question that may be asked is: why are you not following up on the refugee project for your final piece? The refugee project had the dual elements of the 'macro video' approach you have been developing and documentary; in this sense the refugee project is in a further stage of development. Relating the 'macro video' element to an aspect of the refugee's biography has a structural integrity which is not immediately apparent in the Tessel proposal.

3) The third question: the term 'video installation with multiple screens' is currently vague. a) Why is this a necessary outcome? b) Please be more specific about what will happen (or what possibilities do you want to explore with this form?). Specifically, how would the 'macro video' elements and the documentary elements work together in an installation?

4) You use the heading "A video work about being a woman in the contemporary time." You need to outline how so, the proposal does not make this clear how this will be highlighted.

I propose we meet on Monday (virtually or at the pzi), to discuss these issues, are you available at 10:00am Monday?

Below is my edit. I hope you find it helpful. My comments [in Square Brackets] and edits in italics

TESSEL LOSS A video work about being a woman in the contemporary time.

=== What do you want to make? ===

I want to make a work around the Dutch poet Maria Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher [date of birth and death]. She was also a singer and glassengraver. She was unique at that time because she dwelt at the Muiderslot [what is the Muiderslot? in a few words] with the poets Vondel, Bredero, Constatijn Huygens and PC Hooft. Her father was a fisherman and on the night he discovered that his wife was pregnant he had a great loss of one of his fishing boats near the Island Texel. He decided to name his daughter Tesselschade (Tessel Loss). I admire Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher for her personal courage, her wayward way of life and her talent in many fields. She was a good singer, musician (luit, violin, klavecimbel), poet and had a good way to express herself in words. As a woman she was way ahead of her time. Her moto was’ Elck sijn waerom” which means freely translated ‘This is how I interact with friends’.

I want to make a work consisting of a combination of stories by Dutch women named Tessel, visuals of glass engravings and audio of the poems and interviews. I want to make a video installation with multiple screens and would also like to use the material to make a single screen version. In this project I want to explore the filming method I developed during my time at the Pzwart (which I call macro videos) in combination with images of the woman I interview.

Why do you want to make it?

In 1994 [?] I was invited to celebrate Tesselschade’s 100th birthday at the Muiderslot. Together with 100 other Tessel’s we explored Tesselschade’s life at the castle.

[<<this needs more information; are you going to trace the other Tessels who were at this meeting? If this original meeting is the starting point then it would seem less arbitrary, all the Tessel's have this meeting in common and their attention was drawn to the life and work of Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher (see Adam Chodzko's project on the Salo reunion https://www.adamchodzko.com/works/reunion-salo-1998/). It is not made explicit in the proposal but Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher seems to represent a model for female independence of mind and creativity and it also suggests that she can provide a model for contemporary womanhood and an inspiration for yourself in particular... ]

I was named after Dutch journalist Tessel Blok but as a female artist I feel connected to Tesselschade Roemer-Visscher. Over the last months I discovered that life became more social again because I had to explain my name more often to people. I did not do that for a year.

=== How do you plan to make it?

[I cut a sentence here, so that all the claims made for the project are positive] I will start by researching further the person, life and poems of Maria Tesselschade. I also want to visit a glass engraver and make images of the process. I have already started to collect Tessels. I will make a potential list of women I want to interview and start working on a list of questions.[<<this again hits the heart of the project.. what criteria do you have for choosing your Tessels?] I need to explore what I want to talk about with them and what the work addresses. [I would cut this sentence, here you seem to doubt your own motivation for this project. You have to be positive and clear about what you want to get out of this.]

I will interview and film the woman in a studio setting.[why a studio setting? why not on location?]

Besides working on the project I will keep making experiments in the manner of the macro videos I have been making. Experiments with the images I already have on multiple screens. But I also want to experiment with my filming method. I will look for abstract moving images to film, combined with more realistic images. A few weeks ago I did an experiment, see here a sketch: https://youtu.be/sP00VzRK8b4 My method here consists of going to a place (visiting the AZC), shoot small videos of details in the room and tape a conversation with the person (refugee Samson) in that place.

=== What is your timetable?===

I will use November to research the topic. In November and December I will make experiments with imagemaking, also for my thesis. In January I will reach out to Tessels and make appointment for shooting. February and March I will collect the images and do the interviews. In April 2022 I will start editing the collected images. Mix and remix the images. Explore how it works when I put the images on multiple screens. I will also start editing the sound of the interviews and try to work on the sound(scape). [I think this timetable needs accelerating, give your self more time to make the piece and work with the elements. To make a video installation requires a particular set of skills (unless you want to make a bad video installation, which is comparatively easy:-).]

===

=== Who can help you and how?===

I hope to find somebody who makes glass engravings and who is willing to make a works especially for me and my camera. I also want to find somebody who is a master in calligraphy (the art of writing, something Tesselschade did while she stayed at the Muiderslot). I need somebody to help me with good quality audio. On November 19th a friend and former colleague (Ton Henkens) will look at my recording materials and we will check how I can improve my sound recordings. Besides that, I also want to work in the editing process with an audio technician (Laurens Palsgraaf) and a muscician (Tom Swart). Maybe I should look at female technicians and musicians for the project. [? Try not to use "maybe" make a positive statement or do not make one]

=== Relation to previous practice===

Most of my previous practice is documentary filmmaking and video art. Both genres will come together in this project. I want to make a combination of real stories by woman, poetry by Tesselschade, images of glass engravings and sound. I tried to explore this way of working already a little bit with the clips I made with refugees, especially because I was not allowed to film their faces. The challenge is to look for images that complement the stories and express the emotions from the stories.

=== Relation to a larger context===

In this project I can work on telling a story that is close to me and explore my working method. I think that this project can really help me find my own voice and empower me and other women (and men). At the end we are all humans with the same insecurities, problems and guilty pleasures as everybody in the past, the now and the future.