Claudio's Thesis - printing page

CHAPTER 2: STUDIO DIARY

21/11/2023 - An anecdote from last year. (1)

For the "Writing through editing" workshop last year, we were asked to make a short video piece using footage from an online Dutch archive. I made a piece titled A cameraman filming aka FILMINGWATCHINGBURNING. Digging in the archive, I found a rather intriguing clip from the archive showing two cameramen filming each other on top of a skyscraper being built in New York in the 1920s. Its self-reflexive nature immediately attracted me: its subject was not New York's vertical growth - which stayed, literally - in the background, yet the very act of filmmaking, of making images of the world, by means of cameras, on film. The subjects were the two filmmakers, filming each other while filming the world in front of them. I built my piece around that clip, editing it together with other footage - this time intentionally looked for, not found - to develop that self-reflective nature even further. A film projector, a film strip burning, as well as various shots of eyes. I intended to weave together the act of seeing/watching, the act of capturing the world through film, and a more intuitive notion of burning - light burns the chemicals on the celluloid, eyes burn when they stay open for too long, or, also, a burning desire and need to see things. Along the whole piece, with varying intensity, I layered a flickering effect, as a device to make the moving image apparatus sensible to the viewer, to recall the blinking of the eye, to trigger the physical perception of moving images and further play with the provoking idea and feeling of burning eyes.

In the first half of the piece, I crafted a sequence featuring a fast edit of footage of the two cameramen, images of eyes and text-on-screen playing with variations of the words EYES WATCHING / WATCHING EYES. All of a sudden, the screens goes black, abruptly. After a few seconds, a new text-on-screen appears, white letters on black: EYES BURNING. A hard flickering sequence - white and black frames only - follows, emphasizing even more the sensation of burning eyes. The same text stays on screen, floating through the flickering frames. Then, a blurry countershot image of a projector beaming light towards the camera appears - as if it was the source of that flickering sequence, and brings back the piece to figurative imagery. The piece then goes on.

When the screen goes black, the viewer's eyes - until then overstimulated by the mass of fast edited images - are caught unprepared. On that sudden pitch black, afterimages appear, the flickering effect seems to continue, and what is felt is the physical trace of the images seen before, their backlash on the viewer's retinas. Then, on that same black, the text appears. EYES BURNING. A subtle yet precise description not only of some of the images seen before - eyes looking at the camera, shedding tears - but also of the actual physical sensation built and triggered by those very images, the way they have been edited, the way they are felt by the viewer in that specific moment of the piece. A coincidence, a coming together of what is seen, perceived, meant.

The editing of that sequence was rather intentional, yet the witnessing of such effect was rather epiphanic, unexpected and striking. I feel this is an effective reference point in showing me a direction I want to pursue in my future practice, and that contains, in a nutshell, some elements whose use and potential I want to explore in making this new project. Abstract, minimal imagery, working with light as a raw material, self reflection on the medium, embodied/physical/haptic experience of images. Engaging and challenging the viewer's experience of moving images, their position in regards to them, both on a conceptual level and on a physical one. Making the viewer conscious of the experience of seeing, of being, challenging their perception, working on liminal, extreme states/conditions of images; blindness and sight, visibility and invisibility. These are all elements I am interested in addressing in my work.