tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50092615035445124662024-03-13T12:03:26.849-04:00VidPoFilm: the Poetics of Video and Film PoetryBrenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-35095426514549980702012-10-05T18:57:00.000-04:002012-10-09T20:45:48.661-04:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'Myra Walks' by P E Sharpe<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="563" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26252171" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="750"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/26252171">Myra Walks</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/pesharpe">P. E. Sharpe</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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How do you approach "situations which require a significant amount of critical distance"?<sup><a href="http://pesharpe.com/EVIDENCE" target="_blank">1</a></sup><br />
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Is this moving away from what you are close to in order to understand it? 'To approach' with 'critical distance' seems awkward as an emotional strategy, let alone as a methodology. An artwork arising out of a paradoxical <i>I-approach</i> (in the first person) /<i>I-am-an-onlooker</i> (in the third person) will surely be fraught with tensions, fissures, cracking points that threaten or overwhelm.<br />
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Who is <i>Myra,</i> and why does she walk?<br />
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The thumbnail shows a split screen with two blurry landscape images. Let us enter: hit <i>Play</i>.<br />
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As I watched, I wrote: "[the video is] certainly playing with the horizon line, not only the artificially created vertical one in the middle of the screen that splits the two clips, but the way the horizons in the landscapes in the split screen seem to attempt to meet, again and again, within the pace of the rhythm of the footsteps of the videographer. The sonic scape is ominous, and the sounds of children playing, absent from the screen, again, ominous. I did just see a figure momentarily, a man, perhaps a child with him. In the meditation, we, the audience are being taken to a point in the landscape, we travel a path to a moment of consciousness. Finally, at the end, clarity in the clip on one side, and a psychedelic strobe on the other, and sonically, we have arrived at the ocean, where we read the final inscription, and realize we have been traveling in a memorial, and feel the splitting inside us, the immediacy of the tragedy, our sadness."<br />
<br />
Because what I wrote was in a thread in <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/107066609145001672622/posts/E6MLQFz2UZe" target="_blank">her post of the video on G+</a>, P.E. Sharpe responded: "It's also playing with the testimonies of Myra Hindley, who said she waited by the car in the layby on the other side of the road and yet at some point she decided to draw a map of the sites in question. I traced her steps and I stopped at the bridge over a drainage ditch that she refused to cross, unwilling to elaborate further. I tried as best I could to grasp her sense of what she had actually done, the potential for a range of human response within her, very much trying to assimilate her character. The soundscape is layered with both ambient (present when I shot the video) and recorded sound from a variety of sources. I think I may have had as many as 9 tracks when all was said and done."<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders" target="_blank">Wikipedia tells us</a>: "The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around what is now Greater Manchester, England. The victims were five children aged between 10 and 17—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans—at least four of whom were sexually assaulted. The murders are so named because two of the victims were discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, with a third grave also being discovered there in 1987, over 20 years after Brady and Hindley's trial in 1966." We learn that, "Hindley made the first of two visits to assist the police search of Saddleworth Moor on 16 December 1986[;]....and her second visit to the moor in March 1987." It is these latter walks to find the graves of the children that forms the reason for the walk of the videographer along the same route in <i>Myra Walks</i>.<br />
<div>
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<div>
Why would I consider a video without an actual poem a <i>videopoem</i> in VidPoFilm?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Poetry at VidPoFilm, among many approaches, is that a video can be a 'visual poem' that does not require words on screen or by voiceover. <i>Myra Walks</i> relies on a historical narrative to explain its <i>raison d'être</i>, and why the footage has been edited to portray emotional schism, a comprehension of a collective memory that is fraught with contradiction, horror, tragedy in a landscape that takes on these qualities in the handheld clip of the videographer walking, in the editing with its split screen and blurs, and ominous soundtrack.</div>
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Historical poems rely on the historical narrative they are referring to in the poems that are written in context of both the recorded story and the present-day situation of the poet. <i>Myra Walks</i> is a visual poem that P. Elaine has created as a kind of splintered mirror of a specific geographical location where the modern traveller is in juxtaposition to crimes committed many decades before. She explores the strange relationship we have with visiting sites where murder occurred, and the way these memories, that aren't our own, but are 'ours' in a social sense, in a cultural context, impact us. She wordlessly carries the memory of these crimes, and their locale, to us through her visual poem, her video.</div>
<div>
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How do you approach "situations which require a significant amount of critical distance"? Her videopoem answers itself: through a witnessing that requires emotional connection.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3IenGXzX57w/UHIH9D8iiAI/AAAAAAAAUhk/WyEQT4-odys/s1600/Myra+Walks,+by+P.E.+Sharpe.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="99" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3IenGXzX57w/UHIH9D8iiAI/AAAAAAAAUhk/WyEQT4-odys/s200/Myra+Walks,+by+P.E.+Sharpe.tiff" width="200" /></a>
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://www.londonpoetrysystems.com/" target="_blank">London|Poetry|Systems</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.<br />
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Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-1344445360722079922012-01-20T15:21:00.000-05:002012-01-24T16:05:38.550-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'You' by Elise Marianne<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="538" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0QvvTm-Id28?rel=0" width="750"></iframe><br />
direct link: <a href="http://youtu.be/0QvvTm-Id28" target="_blank">'You' by Elise Marianne</a><br />
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Poem/vocals/music/video by Elise
© Elise Marianne 2012<br />
<a href="http://elisepoetry.webs.com/" target="_blank">http://elisepoetry.webs.com/</a><br />
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What I most like about Elise Marianne's videopoem, <i>You</i>, is it maintains an inherent mystery that has an antique, vintage, old world feel. Her work seems to emerge from the distant past into our time. In <i>You</i> the black silhouette plane which contains the crow is like a window we look through, a window of black lace, the bird from some imagined world figuring in ours. It is as if Edgar Allen Poe's crow sits, in silhouette, watching. "...shards of glass about my fingers," the poet says, and it is like we are breaking windows, reaching backward and forward through time.<br />
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The poem in the videopoem is on unrequited love, again we are in a distant world of Courtly love, of the Metaphysical poets, of Emily Dickinson behind her lace curtain dreaming of a richly endowed love. "Your eyes a stilled moon-pond /Where I shall drown if I enter." The crow becomes a nightingale, a bird singing of love. But, the deep blacks, sepia and reds of the palette the poet has chosen to convey her vision work on us. "Mouth to barb wire / your mouth around that fenced forest," and we are back again in the mystery of loss, separation, graves, the past that never ends. "Scars of names etched on every oak that bore the name." Distantly, echoing, old Celtic mysteries, Druidic lore, these wind in and out of Lise's video poem. "Pain is longing; pain is love: a bitter twist that makes us human. But are you human?" These ghostly questions resound, her voice echoing after itself. There is warmth to this crypt-like vision, again I am reminded of the popularity vampire lore currently enjoys, and there is a sense of foreboding, yet an agelessness that is without fear, here too. "What do you expect from me here on the edge for gifts for your ungiving hands?" And, yes, we all know: "This voice is tired of being unheard." It is a dark poem. "Black crows are yours. Dead of night. Shards of glass about my fingers." "This voice is tired of being unheard, tired of waiting. I am done with your silence. Done with the coldness of your winters."<br />
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Elise's voice, her wonderful British accent, is clear as a bell, with smoky edges to it. Her visuals are simply gorgeous. She is a poet who makes videopoems who I have been following for some time. Thus far, she has mostly worked with slideshows and I am happy to see her begin to incorporate found footage from various Internet archives into her work.<br />
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<i>You</i> is one of her most successful pieces to date. Do check out her website.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://elisepoetry.webs.com/aboutelise.htm" target="_blank">From Elise's website</a>: <br />
<blockquote>
Elise, is a UK poet, and the founder and editor of International poetry magazine Decanto. Her work has been included in various magazines and anthologies both in the UK and Internationally.<br />
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She has written many collections of poetry, including 'For All Eternity', 'The Last Lament', 'Paradise', 'Opium Valentines' and 'Sacred Realm'. She is currently working on a new collection.<br />
<br />
Her collections have been widely reviewed. She has also been featured and interviewed in various magazines and ezines, both in the UK and abroad, including; <br />
<br />
The Tower Journal USA <br />
Sonnetto Poesia Canada <br />
Gloom Cupboard USA <br />
Book Seekers agency UK ...... <br />
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Her relay interview with US poet Mary Ann Sullivan, about the poet 'Hilda Doolittle' was featured in 'Jacket2' 2009.<br />
<br />
Elise's poetry is often described as Metaphysical/Romanticism, with strong visual imagery. The concept of bringing together words, music and images brought about the idea of video poetry, a field which seems to suit the strong visual quality of her work. Her video poetry also includes her own musical compositions.<br />
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Her poetry video collaboration 'Conceptus' with American poet Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, has recently been accepted by the Southbank Centre London.<br />
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she writes;<br />
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'I like to totally immerse myself in creating video poems. I think it is the ideal way to collaborate multi media, of poem, image and music; the next best thing to a stage production, which has always been a dream of mine. I love the expression of words and how the spoken voice can convey the feeling or emotion of the poem... and of course the music, which I so enjoy creating. It is very satisfying to be able to bring all aspects together collectively'.</blockquote>
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://www.londonpoetrysystems.com/" target="_blank">London|Poetry|Systems</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.<br />
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</script>Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-5133322731495832652012-01-14T02:30:00.000-05:002012-01-14T20:05:29.534-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'Live! - part 3' by KiNo<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
An email notification on Sep 26, 2011:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">The user named KiNo just added you as a contact on Vimeo.<br />
<br />
KiNo's profile on Vimeo:</span><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/maneatingseas">http://vimeo.com/maneatingseas</a></blockquote>
The email still unread, a few nights ago I clicked on the link. There are a series of videos of the "Poet of Sound and Image," a young man with a British-style accent who is likely of Russian origin called KiNo. KiNo writes songs, is a performer, a public personality.<br />
<br />
His films are oddities in that they seem composed of a mash of images that are flung together without planning or thought. Are they brilliant postmodern montages of contemporary life or bits of filmic captures, the kind we would all have on our cameras if we walked around filming ourselves in the city? Are they a 'found poetry,' meaning not pre-planned but plucked from many hours of video and spliced together in an almost random way?<br />
<br />
The video I chose (or it chose me, for I am never sure about this) for this week's VidPoFilm seems a patching of sequences of images together with a voiceover (by different narrators, one fully in Russian with no subtitles) that gives depth to the moving images of the band of musicians as they visit a medical museum, set up and perform before an audience, look at buildings, drive around in taxis, and disappear into Central Park discussing the moon with backpacks at night at the end.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27566370?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=3c89b5" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/27566370">Live! — Part 3</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/maneatingseas">KiNo</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
Poet of Sound and Image KiNo presents a film in episodes: Live!<br />
Documentary of life and collaborations in New Vague City.<br />
<br />
This film is dedicated to my friend Ira Cohen who passed away recently; leaving behind a materialised account of the akashic records in his poems, photographs, films and inspiring conversations with the individuals whom were graced by his friendship.<br />
<br />
With highlights from the KiNo Exhibition — Invasion from Within.<br />
Featuring footage of the performances with musical legends Malcolm Cecil (Pioneer of electronic music) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths).<br />
<br />
Ira Cohen film<br />
The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda<br />
<a href="http://www.arthurmag.com/?s=the+invasion+of+thunderbolt+pagoda" target="_blank">http://www.arthurmag.com/?s=the+invasion+of+thunderbolt+pagoda</a> (note: I changed the link to a more comprehsive one on Ira Cohen)<br />
<br />
Made by 9<br />
_<br />
<br />
This film is ostensibly a memorial to a poet who KiNo knew and loved, Ira Cohen, 1935-2011.<br />
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Ira Cohen narrates a poem, presumably his, and, while it isn't until the end, because it is the core of the video, I place it here:<br />
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<div class="p1">
<i>Whatever truly dies stays dead forever, </i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>except the spirit live, </i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>and redeem the spark, </i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>this I saw in a luminous glass, </i></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A YouTube trailer of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOWWhPzkwL8" target="_blank">Ira Cohen's underground and groundbreaking film - "Invasion of Thunderbold Pagoda (1968) - Inside his 'mylar chamber'"</a> is shown. There is a scene with a man who is white with a large elfin ear having dried grasses placed on his face by stage crew… his eyes are closed, he is smiling… </div>
<div class="p2">
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<div class="p1">
Cohen's voiceover continues, </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>stand tall as the flame, </i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>which ignites the dark, </i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>of the dark to come, </i></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A performer seems to be sucking red ribbon sucking into mouth. The footage is strange, Fellini-like, and it is shot with Cohen's technique of using mylar.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The final lines cannot be transcribed without watching, his voice carries the emotion of prophesy, a lifetime of experience, and the closeness of death:</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>surrender me not to the formless and unusable worlds of the incomplete</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>in the hope of eternal return as if in a magical tale of my own telling, it will be so...</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
Let's go back to the beginning of the video. Whatever KiNo's video is, it is a journey video. We follow KiNo and his musicians around his city, New Vague City, which is a euphemism for New York City perhaps in the way that Albion was for William Blake. KiNo has a mystic side, and he refers to the transcendental from time to time.
<br />
<br />
But nothing is dwelt on; nothing lingers. We move quickly. The video opens with a man walking up steps from a dark interior, like a boat's hold, to a square of light, and Cohen's voice, "Poetry may be next to prophecy, but I also know life is next to death, that sanity lives next door to insanity."<br />
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There are shots of a camera lens, with the subtitle, "optical purgatory," a name KiNo gave to a song he wrote about transcendental dreaming. A poem is recited by a woman in Russian, subtitled, "yes, please, rise us from the dead."<br />
<br />
What follows is a smorgasbord of images. These is a skeleton on display and a brain on a stainless steel stem, images which I found took us into the strangeness of the body itself. We are in the realm of medicine, the body, it's construction, mortality. Subtitles appear, "we are still in the realm of blood and tears." Then, moving escalators, an old lecture room, a man's head in silhouette against a brown wall with name stickers on it. A silhouette of a hand, angelic clouds, "your palms hold a million starts to new legion of stars," a silhouetted woman in profile with her hair in a bun passes by. "But, man, permit us to land. At home, I am innocent..." and something that looks like tags on a wall showing the solar system with the silhouette of the back of a man's heading watching.<br />
<br />
An older man's voice begins, Cohen's, and his poetry is the most interesting aspect of the videopoem. He says, "radio waves bouncing around in the void," and bright sparks from soldering metal appear.<br />
<br />
KiNo narrates, "and this is the natural course in the events of the energy," while the camera zooms in on an office, bare concrete walls, a desk, two chairs and a white business phone. Then KiNo in white on a white couch being interviewed by a woman in black with long wavy auburn hair who speaks English, "You're a poet of sound and image...?"<br />
<br />
Then an announcement, subtitled on screen beneath a brain on display, "KiNo Sonic Exhibition in June - Invasion from Within (Russian Announcement)." Dramatic zooming in on the brain, dramatic lighting. The music instrumental, gritty. An older sound technician or musician or professor, in a sound studio, equipment all around, enunciated KiNo, the name, then we see the brain again. This is followed by KiNo in a room with walls of controls, like the interior of spaceships in the movies. The older man keeps talking, but in Russian, and no subtitles are offered. Next we are on the street, looking with the hand-held camera lens, it is summer; then we are looking down from a second floor to an art gallery and an older man is looking up at us. There is strobe lighting an art opening, lots of people talking, though we never see the actual art.<br />
<br />
KiNo appears in black, smiling. Cut to another scene with a band performing, being recorded, electronic instruments and sound equipment all about. KiNo in black with white markings playing a large keyboard piano amidst other band members. Cut back to the people at the art reception smiling, drinking, watching and being watched, the way people are at such events, catching up with friends and acquaintances.<br />
<br />
When the older man who has been narrating in Russian is finished, he turns to the camera, to us, and smiles.<br />
<br />
Next is a shot, perhaps from a bridge of a yellow taxi, on a road at night. A voice, KiNo's, like from a megaphone or public intercom system, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is New Vague City"… "a leased apartment"…. "please remain dishonest (shots of a street at night, pedestrians, car headlights)…extend your fingers where they don't belong… (young designers fixing what look like paper lanterns in a store window) …and operate in total darkness… thanks for believing the New Vague City publicity machine."<br />
<br />
Then we are back at into the concert we saw being set up earlier, and see the audience watching in the darkened room, subtitle: "Performance with Malcolm Cecil (Tonto) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths)." The music is rich, ambient, orchestral, pop, and spacey. All the clips are hand-held, shaky. There is a span of the stage covered with instruments, equipment. Next we are walking through a grey bridge between buildings, KiNo voiceover, …"I instigate things I must document. Remembrance of things past, fast." Subtitle: Eve of full moon - photographer Ian Couch takes our portraits in Central Park" KiNo is in white like a sailor and jumping skipping on the streets, we see him from behind, …"see if we can see… the full moon." Cut to the inside of a moving car, where a man with bushy hair sits. Now in a park, KiNo puts an empty beer bottle in a bin, he is in a jean jacket, then we see a woman, a light, a man carrying a large tripod, and the voiceover: "in the city we don't realize what influence the moon has on us, because we just don't see it…. " A discussion ensues, "what light it is … it's like we just don't see it …. out there." KiNo is in a car, waving to the night city outside the moving window, "but it's the strongest light there is.." Someone says, "only film on a full moon." A woman in the dark park, says in Russian, but subtitled, "… I arrived at the moon …"
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They all walk into the dark interior of the park, disappearing in the blackness.
<br />
<br />
This video depicts a world that is not altogether organized. It is an odd assortment of images of a band on tour.<br />
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It seems to say, the only plot is our journey through life, and it is a strange trip.<br />
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://www.londonpoetrysystems.com/" target="_blank">London|Poetry|Systems</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.<br />
<br />Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-8977572079893010262012-01-08T13:36:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:54:41.265-05:00GROUP SHOW: January 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="101" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AzUa0TMuHBc/TsKPxcdP2gI/AAAAAAAAND4/3iy0-3knG7U/s400/VidPoFilm-Banner-BrendaClews.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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<br />
This is VidPoFilm's January 2012 Group Show. A small and very fine collection of video/filmpoems submitted by video/film poets.<br />
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Please send the link to one of your video/film poems each month to vidpofilm{at}gmail{dot}com to be included in the monthly show.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="538" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BCU4qBRBTPg?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/BCU4qBRBTPg" target="_blank">God and Raven by Steven McCabe</a><br />
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Video poetry based on two poems written by Steven McCabe in 2009. Narrated by Steven McCabe. Performance by Paula Skimin. Cinematography by Eric Gerard. Music by William Beauvais. Edited by Konrad Skreta. Super 8 Stanley King. <a href="http://www.stevenmccabe.ca/" target="_blank">www.stevenmccabe.ca</a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/34418026?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=3c89b5" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/34418026">Filmpoem 16/ 14th Avenue Tshwane (née Pretoria)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/alastaircook">Alastair Cook</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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14th Avenue Tshwane (née Pretoria) is a poem by Gérard Rudolf from his collection Orphaned Latitudes. It is my first work of 2012 and illustrates the year's intent: it is made from tangible film, not digital recordings, and 2012 is the year of using the digital to edit the analogue. I cannot edit without digital, I cannot make film without analogue. The year of Rollei, Bolex and Collodion. See you soon and Happy New Year!<br />
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This film contains Standard 8, Super 8, 16mm and miniDV, edited digitally.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="994" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/34487758?color=f7c360" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/34487758">The Birth of Medusa</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/thinkorsmile">Nathaniel Whitcomb</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32189649?portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/32189649">PROOF (a triptych)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/swoon">Swoon</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
PROOF is a videopoem triptych by Swoon made for 3 poems by David Tomaloff.<br />
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Deconstructing Light (_object{-ions in the mirror)<br />
(http://vimeo.com/30722535)<br />
Thespianic Mythology No. 4<br />
(http://vimeo.com/30979877)<br />
Proof<br />
(http://vimeo.com/31417514)<br />
<br />
PROOF was published by Connotation Press.<br />
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You can visit PROOF: http://proof3.wordpress.com/<br />
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Credits:<br />
<br />
Panel 1 : Deconstructing Light (_object{-ions in the mirror)<br />
<br />
Poem & Voice: David Tomaloff<br />
Camera: Jonas Gramming – Swoon<br />
Concept, editing, treats, music: Swoon<br />
Thanks to: St. Hank BB (Man), Arlekeno Anselmo (Ghost), JC (Hands)<br />
<br />
‘-object{-ions in the mirror’ was first published by Kill Author<br />
<br />
Panel 2 : Thespianic Mythologie No. 4<br />
<br />
Poem & Voice: David Tomaloff<br />
Concept, camera, editing, treats, music: Swoon<br />
<br />
‘Thespianic Mythology No. 4′ was first published by Kill Author<br />
<br />
Panel 3 : Proof<br />
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Poem & Voice, Photo’s: David Tomaloff<br />
Concept, camera, editing, treats, music: Swoon<br />
<br />
‘Proof’ was written especially for this triptych by David on a prompt by Swoon.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="413" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/33484094?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/33484094">'Alone' by Yvor Winters</a> from <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/whalesound">Nic Sebastian</a> on <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
'Alone' by Yvor Winters<br />
<br />
I, one who never speaks,<br />
Listened days in summer trees,<br />
Each day a rustling leaf.<br />
<br />
Then, in time, my unbelief<br />
Grew like my running -<br />
My own eyes did not exist,<br />
When I struck I never missed.<br />
<br />
Noon, felt and far away -<br />
My brain is a thousand bees. <br />
<br />
**<br />
Camera: Phil Fried, xstockvideo.com, Hubble website artists.<br />
Music: '26 June Advent' by Matt Samolis<br />
Voice & editing: Nic Sebastian<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/28221919?byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/28221919">Hope is the thing with feathers</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/davebonta">Dave Bonta</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
Emily Dickinson's famous poem in its historical context. Reading by the one and only Nic Sebastian. Film clips are in the public domain: "Civil War," by Encyclopaedia Brittanica Films, 1954. Editing etc. by yours truly for http://movingpoems.com<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6vAqpMuKMWw?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/6vAqpMuKMWw" target="_blank">'Shadow Cave' by Brenda Clews</a><br />
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Shadow Cave is about reaching into the darkness in ourselves and bringing what is hidden to light, which is reminiscent of the return of the sun in the darkest moment.<br />
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It's a small offering. I did subtitle it, so click on the cc if you'd like to read along, or translate into another language.<br />
<br />
It's based on a real ritual I did in 1995 and which I wrote an extensive entry in my journal about. I re-wrote the ritual as a sort of modern fairy tale. It's about integrating ourselves at our deepest levels, however we image that. Sometimes what is in our shadows is not anything 'dark' or 'dangerous' at all! It is only what we've repressed in ourselves... it could be a hurt or wounded part of yourself, and it might be your very creativity itself.<br />
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Shadows and dopple gangers appear in this videopoem, as ever. :)<br />
Please forgive. (I just can't help being multiple, ya know!)<br />
<br />
I offer it to the light within us.<br />
<br />
Blog post with more info: <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/%E2%80%8B2011/%E2%80%8B10/%E2%80%8Bdance-videopoem-shadow-cave.html" target="_blank">http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/2011/10/dance-videopoem-shadow-cave.html </a><br />
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<br />
<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://www.londonpoetrysystems.com/" target="_blank">London|Poetry|Systems</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-89998122515563690092012-01-07T02:59:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:54:28.185-05:00FRIDAY VIDEO/FILM POEM: R.W. Perkins' 'PROFILE'<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
(from the) <a href="https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline" target="_blank">Facebook Timeline</a>:
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Share and highlight your most memorable posts, photos and life events on your timeline. This is where you can tell your story from beginning, to middle, to now.<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/about/profile/" target="_blank">Profile</a>:</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Start with a snapshot. Your profile begins with a quick summary of who you are, giving friends an easy way to see where you live now, where you're working and more. A collection of recently tagged photos also shows what you've been up to lately.
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Share your experiences
Give a more complete picture of how you spend your time, including your projects at work, the classes you take and other activities you enjoy (like hiking or reading). You can even include the friends who share your experiences.
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Highlight meaningful friendships
Your close friends can be just as important as family. Now you can highlight family members and the other key people in your life, like your best friends or coworkers — all right on your profile.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://twitter.com/" target="_blank">Tweet your day</a>.<br />
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Who are you?<br />
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</tbody>
</table>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">PROFILE </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">PROFILE </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">PROFILE</span></div>
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<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0iV3zDtxzdg?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
<a href="http://youtu.be/0iV3zDtxzdg">Profile By. R.W. Perkins</a> from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/juteback/videos">R.W. Perkins</a> on YouTube.<br />
<blockquote>
General Description<br />
<br />
Profile is a stream of consciousness combination of poetry and prose. The visuals of the film were intended to represent the chaos of thought. <br />
<br />
Overall Description <br />
<br />
There are several stories behind this film. Let's start with the genesis of this film poem. A friend had looked over some of my past written works, then started comparing it to my new films. He made an observation; that much of my older work would be considered stream of consciousness, and that I should try implementing that style in some of my film poems. <br />
<br />
As the conversation evolved, this suggestion became more of a challenge; as we then tried to implement rules as to how something stream of consciousness could or would be filmed. <br />
<br />
My first thought was the film would have to be written, shot and edited simultaneously, I still like the idea, but for my first attempt I decided it was a little ambitious. <br />
<br />
So we decided that the rules would be based mostly around the written word. There were only 2 rules, but they were tough. I had 30 minutes to write, then 30 minutes to do a reading. Whatever I came up with in that hour would be the gospel, no edits or rewrites. </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
~</div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.rw-perkins.com/profile-videopoem/" target="_blank">At his website, R.W. Perkins writes</a>, "Both the subject and name of the poem were directly influenced by online social identities, blurbs about one's life creating a narrative of their day. I feel as though many people have begun to reveal themselves through still images and abbreviated phrases, it's almost as though brevity is becoming a new language. This "abbreviated language" in many ways reminds me of poetry. I started thinking of William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just To Say" as a text, a tweet, or blog post. Then I started thinking of the ridiculousness of someone sharing every waking moment of one's life. "Holy shit!" I thought. Sounds a lot like a poet or a writer. What great inspiration for a poem."<br />
<br />
R.W. Perkins speaks about the process he underwent making this videopoem, from its inception through to the challenge he gave himself to write and record the poems within a tight timeframe of one hour, changes in the style after watching The Boston Strangler one night, "I was now shooting a 1960-70 action, adventure spy film inspired videopoem,"and the Kerouac and Nietzsche quotes. He says, "I wanted something that felt very gritty and real, like something that you would shoot and post on your facebook page to laugh at with your family and friends. So I started filming and shooting pictures from my iphone. I had just recently fell in love with my new hipstamatic app..."<br />
<br />
R.W. Perkins has it all in this video. When I saw it I felt it was a marker of our era. That surely many films of this type will follow, but his was the first. Identity in the twenty-first century is shaped by social media sites. Your life is not contained in your private diaries and photo albums anymore; it's all on-line now. The notion of who we are has never been more global or more revealing.<br />
<br />
One's Facebook profile updates and photo albums provide many snapshots of a life. R.W. Perkins has captured that sense of a collided life, a life of snapshots and home videos and snatches of writing. It is a fast-paced life. We describe ourselves to each other. There are millions of us. Facebook is approaching 1/7th of the world's population. It is a social media site that is creating a twenty-first sense of self.<br />
<br />
Put it all together and you get, PROFILE. On his website, R.W. Perkins offers his essay on his videopoem, <i>Profiles</i>, as his Profile.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
R.W. Perkins "is a filmmaker and poet living and working in Fort Collins, Colorado. A relative newcomer to the independent film scene and literary community, he has worked in video production for five years, producing many television and web commercials as well as many small business documentaries. In late 2009 Perkins created Juteback Productions as a means to showcase some of his more creative endeavors."<br />
<br />
<i>Profile</i> is slick, professionally edited - superb timing, a dancing timeline of photos and videos, nothing hand-held here, so a profile that's already public, bare shots of the intimate here and there, a poem of depth that's echoes the Facebook Timeline. Look at the creation and expression of identity; our shifting subjectivities.<br />
<br />
Writing this article I went through the videopoem slowly making detailed notes. Rather than summarize, I share with you my notes:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>…begins with the speaking lips, moustache and beard appearing… Pink title lettering… then split screens, some present tense, the author/filmmaker, and others from stock footage, older, yet intense… by the end of the introductory title we know we are in the hands of a professional filmmaker, R.W. Perkins comes by this through his day job making commercials and documentaries, but brings those techniques to film poetry. The music has a great beat, tribal ambient. He cuts the video to the music, and it is very effective. <br />
<br />
"PROFILE. I am awake," he begins, at the bathroom mirror. There are two images of him, from behind and reflected in the mirror, "prepared and ready for the day, prepared for the onslaught." The dogs get fed on a stage in which the curtains are their lines of stainless steel dog bowls.<br />
<br />
The interspersion of Hipstamatic cell phone photos is brilliant. Coloured brightly, they stand out as markers of the photographed and post-processed world we live in.<br />
<br />
Coffee is footage from an old diner… and so it goes. The lettering, when it appears, is consistent, and it becomes a striking visual element on par with the video clips and the snappy photos.<br />
<br />
The working day is clips of factories from the 1940s: "Laborious: Working Hard OR Hardly Working" and the ubiquitous smiley.<br />
<br />
The small pleasures to come of one's life roll up the side like a slowed film series of snapshots colourized in the Hipstamatic app.<br />
<br />
He goes forward into the day; then we find out he hasn't left the morning mirror yet. There is a screen where he has a bathroom mirror video in colour, one running in black and white, and two bright red and yellow Hipstamatic iPhone photos. This is the modern Profile, indeed.<br />
<br />
"Cut to: PROFILE." And there are a fast series of snapshots, some perhaps of the author/filmmaker, some of found stock footage, fast<br />
<br />
"The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to." Friedrich Nietzsche<br />
<br />
Cut to. Lots of close-ups of the eyes of the author/filmmaker/<br />
<br />
The supermarket makes an appearance in black and white with a change in music, to what I'd call 'skating at the park on friday night' music. Musak. <br />
<br />
Yes, we all think about saving .20cents off a brand of yoghurt we know we won't like. This is very real. Songs get stuck in our heads.<br />
<br />
Snap back to, PROFILE.<br />
<br />
Beach scene, and the ear. Listening. We began with the mouth. Then the mirror.<br />
<br />
Tints change on found footage and photos. There is a visual aesthetic that is honed to get your attention. Nothing drags, or is slow. Colours jump out of the screen. We are kept awake throughout.<br />
<br />
"I exist as a solitary creature that craves the company and troubles of others." R.W.Perkins.<br />
<br />
Then we are with him in his house staring up at the blue sky, "birds, clouds and jet airplanes". He watches neighbours who are out, a jogger, a woman in sun glasses pushing a stroller. "I do not feel small, rather… feel like a giant." And the word giant appears in white lettering in a split screen that has a black and white bird on the left and an unpolarized shot of his neighbourhood on the right.<br />
<br />
"Perspective is important here. When compared to a virtual nothing I think you'll find I have finger, nose, toes and eyes, and …I am quite prodigious."<br />
<br />
PROFILE<br />
<br />
"I am a voyeur. From the comfort of my couch, my dogs at my feet, I can see the neighbours pace in front of their window" and we get terrific split screen of the voyeur in black and white watching as if from behind curtains a jogger… again split screens with different times of the events the author is relating… "She sees me; she is glaring back at me with the suggestive gaze, she is saying, 'her day is going about as well as can be expected… and she is thrilled she looks so good in her new sun glasses." they are in their homes and the jet airplane overhead is full of self-important… but I can't help but wonder-<br />
<br />
can they see me?"<br />
<br />
PROFILE<br />
<br />
"I am awake. I can think, and I exist. And I can see that today I am prodigious. The sky and all that surrounds it will come and go, as I see fit."<br />
<br />
PROFILE</i></blockquote>
<br />
PROFILE is a keeper - a defining film poem on our era. This videopoem may spawn a host of videos and films exploring the modern social media identity, in this snappy beat of a style, but R.W.Perkins did it first.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a "="" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IE2k-VBnJRk/TwiE7h5gedI/AAAAAAAAOA0/k96pKIWPMak/s1600/Profile-by-R.W.-Perkins.jpg"><img border="0" height="125" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IE2k-VBnJRk/TwiE7h5gedI/AAAAAAAAOA0/k96pKIWPMak/s200/Profile-by-R.W.-Perkins.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
_<br />
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<br />
<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://www.londonpoetrysystems.com/" target="_blank">London|Poetry|Systems</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-52724335569183407912011-12-16T18:33:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:54:15.811-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'Of Stars and People' by Ruah Edelstein<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7UInULtkIUI/TuvTTyQ-4dI/AAAAAAAANeA/TDcLD0ruOwU/s1600/RuahEdelstein-OfStarsAndPeople.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="112" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7UInULtkIUI/TuvTTyQ-4dI/AAAAAAAANeA/TDcLD0ruOwU/s200/RuahEdelstein-OfStarsAndPeople.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.ruahedelstein.com/" target="_blank">Ruah Edelstein's</a> films exude an innocence and a child-like joy. Her animation is among my favourite. When I need to find blessing, I return <a href="http://www.ruahedelstein.com/animation.html" target="_blank">to Ruah's films</a>.<br />
<br />
For the Solstice/Hanukkah/Christmas festive season, I present one of her Oah and Harlam Episodes: <a href="http://vimeo.com/24897411" target="_blank">Of Stars and People</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://ruahedelstein.blogspot.com/2011/04/of-stars-people.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="177" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-644hvIUji1w/TbxXTGuR_mI/AAAAAAAAAac/ZkPlvXoqcRI/s320/Screen+shot+2011-04-25+at+12.59.19+AM.jpg" width="320" /></a>In <i>Of Stars and People</i>, we find Oah falling through the skies downwards. Snow falls as Oah falls, turning in the sky. A male voice (Dylan Forman) narrates for Oah, and a female voice (Ruah herself) for Harlam. When Harlam appears, he seems to emerge from the landscape itself, and he is but a shadow over it. His eyes are deep, and compassionate. He turns, and we watch a white gull glide in the distance while the female narrator tells us Harlam 'was laughing.' Different levels of the landscape move differently in the animation. An outer sky seems to come with us as we draw back from the wide angle view of the scenic ocean with its mountains in the distance. 'Harlam was laughing at Oah. ' Then Oah is rising from a field of green with round white circles all about, rubbing herself off, having landed. Dandelion fluff billows a little like the snow we saw earlier. She is in a field of dandelions. 'But when a star falls, one must make a wish.' Oah blows a dandelion seed head, and "Made a wish for Harlam, instead.' The dandelion seeds fly out like little white trees, or snowflakes, or stars. 'Oah made a kind wish.' Both narrators speak the same words. Harlam is making a kind wish too. It is a giving message, and I love it.
<a href="http://ruahedelstein.blogspot.com/2011/04/scoring-of-stars-people.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bMjbiN3qeic/TbpEEKSxNMI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/EzNk__1WTKY/s200/DSC_3330.jpg" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.yoonlee.com/" target="_blank">Yoon Lee's music</a> is perfect (he plays the guitar, kalimba and kayagum; with Molly McLaughlin on flute; and Kassandra Kocoshis on percussion), and if you browse Ruah's blog, you'll find more on his work, as well <a href="http://ruahedelstein.blogspot.com/2011/06/summary.html" target="_blank">as a film, <i>Summary</i>,</a> that they collaborated on. (A photo of Yoon scoring the music for <i>Of Stars and People.</i>)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/24897411?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=3c89b5" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe></div>
<a href="http://vimeo.com/24897411" target="_blank">Of Stars and People (2011)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user4477181" target="_blank">Ruah Edelstein</a>.
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #666666;">One more episode to the series! At first glance the stories about two weirdoes Oah and Harlam may appear as senseless. But when there is an overflow of senselessness, then appears deep philosophy.<br />
<br />
These stories are not just shorts that I wrote, they are a worldview, answers to some questions of reality, grotesque simplicity of which seems to be surreal. In this project bits of life situations, thoughts, and actions are applied to animation, music, and a spoken word. There is a need to write fairytales for grownups, to write almost impossible stories, because when we seriously begin to talk about important and intimate things in life, most of us cannot take it.
<br />
<br />
Original music scored by <a href="http://www.yoonlee.com/" target="_blank">Yoon Lee</a> involves a rare use of instruments such as kalimba and kayagum (Korean zither).</span></blockquote>
<a href="http://ruahedelstein.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-of-of-stars-people.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #666666; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9wpz0IQw3aY/Tuu2sHaWn-I/AAAAAAAANds/Z8BEXONtDus/s320/RuahEdelstein-OfStarsAndPeople-Storyboard.jpg" width="183" /></a>Ruah's work has a deceptive simplicity, not only the poetry, which is fairytale-like, but the animation itself.<br />
<br />
The figures have a transparency as they move over a background which appears through them. In <a href="http://ruahedelstein.blogspot.com/2011/05/of-care-still.html" target="_blank">her blog we learn</a>, "I used oil paints for all the layers in the background, which was very fun to work with, while seeing how the paints interconnect after being layered digitally on screen." Before she reaches the stage of digitalizing, there is the rush of ideas, and storyboarding.<br />
<br />
To the right you will see images of her work flow for the film featured today (if you click on the image, you'll go to her blog post). In the first image, simple, raw sketches of ideas as they emerge from her imagination. She writes, "This is one of my most favourite stages, where visuals are coming out for the first time to being without any restrictions, a very intuitive and spontaneous process to allow all sorts of visualizing ideas to come up." She says, be "loose," "minimilist," while "touching only on the keys of the story." Then comes the storyboard, which she keeps nearby her working area "at all times," shows to "friends and colleagues," and "thinks about over and over." She follows it closely when making the film.<br />
<br />
Already we are beginning to suspect a master at work here. Browsing <a href="http://www.ruahedelstein.com/" target="_blank">Ruah Edelstein's website</a>, we find she is, indeed, an accomplished artist - in fact, the sale of her art enabled her to move from Europe to California where she is currently working on an MFA in animation at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Before being drawn to animation, she was an actress, and also directed. Originally from Lithuania, where she grew up while her country was still part of the USSR, <a href="http://www.ruahedelstein.com/bio.html" target="_blank">her Bio</a> tells us, that, at age 10 she was accepted in to "a renowned School of Fine Arts in Klaipeda, her hometown at the coast of the Baltic sea." Most recently, she had an <i>Oah and Harlam</i> film in the Chelyabinsk No-Festival of Video Art and Animation in 2010; <a href="http://vimeo.com/14077658" target="_blank">Of Giants</a>, was selected for the Animex Awards in Feb 2011, held in the UK; and she presented <i>Oah and Harlam</i> episodes in San Diego at a NOW conference for authors and critics of contemporary, innovative literature in Oct 2011. Expect to see this lady's work regularly on the festival circuits when she hits her stride. Her films, with their whimsical, fairytale-like stories and characters, and their deeper philosophies giving a profundity to her work, are outstanding.<br />
<br />
<br />
This is my last article of 2011; FRIDAY VIDPOFILM will return January 6, 2012. Warmest season's greetings to everyone!<br />
<span style="text-align: left;">_</span><br />
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<br />
<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.<br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://www.londonpoetrysystems.com/" target="_blank">London|Poetry|Systems</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-28627615483598607772011-12-09T20:33:00.001-05:002012-01-14T11:54:03.417-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: Sylvia Plath's 'Lady Lazarus' and 'Daddy'<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
These older gems have been on YouTube for 5 or 6 years. The first, <i>Sylvia Plath Reads Lady Lazarus</i>, has about a quarter of a million views; the second, <i>Sylvia Plath Reads 'Daddy,</i>' is in the half a million range. In the world of video/film poetry, these two flicks are superstars.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately they come to us without any filmmaker information. Who made them? Who is the actress? That information was not recorded, or was cut off, when they were copied from British television at least 20 years ago or longer and later transferred to a format for uploading to YouTube. I was unable to find anything on their origin after an afternoon of looking on-line, but am very glad that these film poems are there for us to see.<br />
<br />
Each film uses <a href="http://library.stpatricks.tas.edu.au/index.php/literature/poets/378-sylvia-plath?showall=1" target="_blank">Sylvia Plath's</a> <i>own</i> readings of her poems. Her readings are as powerful, intense, and gripping as her confessional poetry. Both were recorded by the BBC shortly after they were written. The power that drove her to write them is, to my ear, in her voice as she reads them. The cauldron of her creativity was still on fire. They are riveting, strong poems on the page, and aurally. I would have liked to see her as she read her poetry that day, but we can only imagine her presence.<br />
<br />
Sylvia Plath, as many readers might know, was a talented poet who was married to Ted Hughes and who bore two children with him. After they separated, Plath awoke before dawn each day and wrote her most inspired poetry, collected in the slim volume, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_(book)" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Ariel</a>. She committed suicide by turning on the oven after blowing out the pilot light and blocking the drafts under the doors while her children slept. Her death ricocheted her to posthumous fame. She has been an immensely popular and influential poet for almost 50 years.<br />
<br />
Her final poetry arises out of a world that is still dealing with the massive and inhumane deaths during the war. Coming to grips with the Holocaust, for instance, a painful and sensitive issue, was especially acute in the post-war period. Plath's father was German, and she not only felt abandoned at 8 years of age when he died, but he became symbolic of the Nazi spirit to the young poet who identified with the Jewish people who were gassed to death in the concentration camps. 'Daddy,' the second film poem below is an indictment not only of Nazi Germany but of the horrors its descendants deal with.<br />
<br />
Plath is a lyrical poet whose "I" becomes the "I" of a crazed humanity on the brink of destruction, even as she wills her horse, <a href="http://poemhunter.com/poem/ariel/" target="_blank">Ariel</a>, "Into the red /Eye, cauldron of morning."<br />
<br />
The film poem, <i>Sylvia Plath Reads Lady Lazarus</i>, opens with an image of one of her poems, in reverse - white writing on black. It is a rough draft of <i><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/plath.shtml" target="_blank">Lady Lazarus</a></i> and we can see how she worked and re-worked her poems, scratching words out, re-writing until they sang to her with dark intensities. She had attempted suicide a number of times in her life and refers to her ability to come back to life; like Lazarus that Jesus brought back from the dead, she is "A sort of walking miracle," "And like the cat I have nine times to die." In the film poems, lights appear and disappear in the darkness that is a continuing motif throughout both pieces. <i>Lady Lazarus</i> is mostly black and white, but when colour appears, it is iridescent. Sylvia bitterly states, in what are surely the most famous lines of the poem, "Dying /Is an art, like everything else. /I do it exceptionally well." Images come and go almost like pictures flung on the wall by turning lamps, reflected, meeting the poem, retreating into the darkness. Photographs of Sylvia appear in the film, and they are haunted by her speaking. And there is an actress, a beautiful woman, who appears and disappears, a woman who might be "the same, identical woman":<br />
<br />
I am your opus, <br />
I am your valuable, <br />
The pure gold baby <br />
<br />
That melts to a shriek. <br />
I turn and burn. <br />
Do not think I underestimate your great concern. <br />
<br />
Ash, ash--- <br />
You poke and stir. <br />
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there---- <br />
<br />
A cake of soap, <br />
A wedding ring, <br />
A gold filling. <br />
<br />
Herr God, Herr Lucifer <br />
Beware <br />
Beware. <br />
<br />
Out of the ash <br />
I rise with my red hair <br />
And I eat men like air.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="538" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/esBLxyTFDxE?rel=0" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/esBLxyTFDxE" target="_blank">Sylvia Plath Reads Lady Lazarus</a><br />
<br />
"This video is an excerpt from a television arts documentary from about fifteen years ago. The images are very haunting and compliment the poetry extremely well." presumably the original uploader, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/mishima1970" target="_blank">mishima1970</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=esBLxyTFDxE" target="_blank">in a comment 5 years ago</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/plath.shtml" target="_blank">The BBC tells us</a> (where you may <i>read and listen to</i> the longer poem in its entirety), "This powerful reading was recorded for the British Council only days after the poem was written and is slightly longer than the version published posthumously in the collection 'Ariel'."<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="538" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6hHjctqSBwM?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/6hHjctqSBwM" target="_blank">Sylvia Plath Reads 'Daddy'</a><br />
<br />
"It IS Sylvia Plath reading it, and it is the official BBC recording from 1962. She recorded about twenty poems in her own voice, and this is one of them." presumably the original uploader, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/mishima1970" target="_blank">mishima1970</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=6hHjctqSBwM&page=3" target="_blank">in a comment 4 years ago</a><br />
<br />
If you would like to hear "Sylvia Plath interviewed by Peter Orr of The British Council - 30th October 1962," try here: <a href="http://youtu.be/S-v-U70xoZM" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/S-v-U70xoZM</a> before YouTube removes it for copyright violations (as it has done with other sites that also presented this material), unless, of course, the interview is now in the public domain (I was not able to certify this in an Internet search).<br />
<br />
Because I don't wish to make this article too long, briefly I will say that the film poem, <i>Sylvia Plath Reads 'Daddy,' </i>crosses genres from a poetic rendition of a poem to a documentary. In it we find not only stock footage from the war of Nazi soldiers marching, and the terrifying transport trains for Jewish people sent to the concentration camps, but images from Sylvia's life float up at us - pictures of her during her life, a child here, a beautiful young woman there, scenes with her father and mother, her husband, Ted Hughes, even her father's gravestone. Like her poetry, which interweaves personal biography with horrendous political events, an intimate drive towards death by suicide with a collective desire to kill as shown by the scope of World War II, the film poem interweaves collected images of the poet's life with poetic images and film from the war itself. To say masterfully done barely describes this film poem. After you watch it you will understand why it has had 559,037 views and counting.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G9uAORET-G4/TuOUOL0LR9I/AAAAAAAANak/_NruL50CddI/s1600/Sylvia-Plath-reads-Daddy.jpg"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G9uAORET-G4/TuOUOL0LR9I/AAAAAAAANak/_NruL50CddI/s320/Sylvia-Plath-reads-Daddy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-65829947974118101062011-12-07T15:00:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:53:43.882-05:00VIDEO/FILMPOETS ON VIDEO/FILMPOETRY: Philip David Edson<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://www.philip-abstractions.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Philip David Edson</a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_XVNz5f5hU/TuLyf9OSTVI/AAAAAAAANaE/21uz5viMToQ/s1600/Phillipe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_XVNz5f5hU/TuLyf9OSTVI/AAAAAAAANaE/21uz5viMToQ/s320/Phillipe.jpg" width="191" /></a><br />
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Recently, VidPoFilm featured '<a href="http://vidpofilm.blogspot.com/2011/12/friday-videofilm-poem-caldo-de.html">Caldo de cultivo/Culture Medium' by Phillipe and Lola Miralles</a>. Philip David Edson, <a href="http://vimeo.com/philipedson" target="_blank">whose work you can see on Vimeo</a>, sent me this description of where he is currently in his collaborative film work in an email, and with his permission, I post it for VidPoFilm's very first Video/Filmpoets on Video/Filmpoetry:<br />
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About 2 years ago, I came to the view that I was tired of being part of a passive audience in many respects. TV has been in my life for over 50 years and it just seemed like everything was going around in circles and I had no means of answering, commenting or being involved. I think we have got used to being part of a passive audience – theatre, art galleries, advertising – you name it – it seemed as if we were only here to be informed, instructed, persuaded – with no opportunity to respond or participate. Inside I was asking ‘is nobody interested in what I think?’</div>
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It was at this point I decided to stop painting and do something which enabled me to be more participative and work with others. At last new technology and the internet, etc – has made it possible for me to say a few things. I am not looking to have a big voice but just to be able to use it once in awhile - more than I could with painting (although I sometimes do think of my videos as ‘moving paintings’).<br />
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Since I began making videos, I have been trying to collaborate with other people too. I have come to believe that something bigger comes from collaboration – everybody learns something and everyone has a voice. I have to say that at times it has been frustrating – I have felt misunderstood, taken advantage of, disappointed – but then, looking back, I have learned a great deal from everyone I have worked with and I think some of the negative feelings were part of joining life again. Overall, it was definitely worth the effort. It has been a period of tremendous personal growth and creativity. Every day, I want to get up in a morning and start work! My energy has come back. I feel fresh again. And I know I have more to do.<br />
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These days, I look for some kind of equilibrium with other people. My desire is to work with others where there is some mutual give and take. I feel, as a society, that we have somehow lost the plot and need to relearn how to be with each other – me included. We need to discover our own voice and values again. We need to relearn generosity of spirit – the things we use to have but somehow got lost in the race of me-ism, consumerism and the idea that everyone can be a star. Maybe these things happened because we have allowed ourselves to be passive audiences for far too long. For my part I have walked away from that.<br />
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At this stage in my life, I feel lucky. I never once let go of my childhood imagination and I am still using it on a daily basis. Do I make art or do I just play? Probably the latter. I am not really sure that the word art has any real meaning to me now. I have been through that loop. It amuses me now to think of myself as an early caveman just drawing on the walls – no galleries, no fame, no ulterior motive, no hoops to jump through – just for the love of it and being inclusive.<br />
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Phillipe's featured videos
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/28541309" style="color: #2786c2; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" height="75" src="http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/190/490/190490971_100.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="100" /></a></div>
<div class="title" style="float: left; font: normal normal bold 12px/normal arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 190px;">
<a href="http://vimeo.com/28541309" style="color: #2786c2; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">crazy world / el mundo loco</a></div>
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Black and white self-portraits. Music by Julie Andrews. Autorretratos en blanco y negro. Música…</div>
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<div class="title" style="float: left; font: normal normal bold 12px/normal arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 190px;">
<a href="http://vimeo.com/28264514" style="color: #2786c2; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">People are strange - La gente es extraña</a></div>
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A short film in two parts - the second part is performance art by Leticia Ñeco and the first…</div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/28301727" style="color: #2786c2; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" height="75" src="http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/188/693/188693034_100.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="100" /></a></div>
<div class="title" style="float: left; font: normal normal bold 12px/normal arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 190px;">
<a href="http://vimeo.com/28301727" style="color: #2786c2; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Motherless Child</a></div>
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An illustration of the rather stark, haunting version of the traditional song - Motherless…</div>
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<i style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.</div>
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VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
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Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
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Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-12411706949848989792011-12-04T14:24:00.001-05:002012-01-14T11:53:18.532-05:00GROUP SHOW: December 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is VidPoFilm's first Group Show. A small and very fine collection of video/filmpoems submitted by video/film poets.<br />
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Please send the link to one of your video/film poems each month to vidpofilm{at}gmail{dot}com to be included in the monthly show.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32233272?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/32233272">Filmpoem 14/ Mothlight</a> by Alastair Cook.<br />
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Mothlight is a film of Janette Ayachi's poem, which she wrote after watching James Stanley Brakhage's film Mothlight, a film shot on single 8 and hand edited in 1963, a "found foliage" film composed of insects, leaves, and other detritus sandwiched between two strips of perforated tape.<br />
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Janette Ayachi has a MSc in Creative Writing and her poetry has been widely published, her last publication in New Writing Scotland 29. Red Squirrel will publish her pamphlet A Choir of Ghosts early in 2012, and her first full book collection in January 2013. Janette's new poetry is beguiling, mercurial, her words are set out before her- dark, open, beautiful.<br />
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Mothlight was filmed on single 8 in 1961 and edited in 2011. <a href="http://filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">http://filmpoem.com</a><br />
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direct link: <a href="http://youtu.be/TqgtZifJ_fU">Three Poems</a> by Steven McCabe.<br />
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Three Poems is a short film featuring poems written and narrated by Steven McCabe with performance by Paula Skimin, cinematography by Eric Gerard, editing by Konrad Skreta. <a href="http://www.stevenmccabe.ca/" target="_blank">www.stevenmccabe.ca</a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32440340?portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/32440340">Morder</a> by Swoon.<br />
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Morder is the third panel of the videopoem triptych 'Trauma'<br />
http://traumatriptych.wordpress.com/<br />
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Words, voice, camera, editing, treats and music: Swoon. <a href="http://www.swoon-bildos.be/" target="_blank">www.swoon-bildos.be</a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="538" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/m5vFa7fwJes?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/m5vFa7fwJes" target="_blank">Blue lines from fingers swing</a> by Diane Bowen<br />
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Blue Lines From Fingers Fall</div>
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Drawing/Video/Poem</div>
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shelter</div>
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seeking shelter</div>
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gravity</div>
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rousing storms</div>
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seeking home</div>
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place</div>
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dreams</div>
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heal</div>
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lines forming </div>
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roads far away</div>
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seeking shelter</div>
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shelter</div>
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shelter</div>
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listen</div>
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I'm listening</div>
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I am listening</div>
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lines are forming</div>
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I hear you</div>
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I hear you</div>
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I hear you</div>
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seeking</div>
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listening</div>
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silence</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="538" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PTWvzNeSlAk?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/PTWvzNeSlAk" target="_blank">Over the Tracks</a> by Cynthia Cox.
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Poetry and video by Cynthia Cox. More at <a href="http://mareymercy.com/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">http://mareymercy.com/</span></a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="563" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/31201914?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=f0b400" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="751"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/31201914">Riqueza (Riches) - a poem by Gabriela Mistral</a> by <a href="http://vimeo.com/davebonta">Dave Bonta</a>.<br />
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Reading by Nic Sebastian from <a href="http://pizzicatiofhosanna.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/riqueza-de-gabriela-mistral/" target="_blank">Pizzicati of Hosanna</a>.<br />
Music by Chris Kent, "<a href="http://soundcloud.com/chris-kent/the-foggy-dew-1" target="_blank">The Foggy Dew</a>"<br />
I'm responsible for the translation, video footage and editing. I blogged the process here: <a href="http://www.vianegativa.us/2011/10/riches/" target="_blank">http://www.vianegativa.us/2011/10/riches/</a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="413" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32373547?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="751"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/32373547">'L'Infinito' di Giacomo Leopardi</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/whalesound">Nic Sebastian</a>.<br />
Translation by Henry Reed (http://bit.ly/rHU6O4)<br />
<br />
'The Infinite' by Giacomo Leopardi<br />
<br />
Always to me beloved was this lonely hillside<br />
And the hedgerow creeping over and always hiding<br />
The distances, the horizon's furthest reaches.<br />
But as I sit and gaze, there is an endless<br />
Space still beyond, there is a more than mortal<br />
Silence spread out to the last depth of peace,<br />
Which in my thought I shape until my heart<br />
Scarcely can hide a fear. And as the wind<br />
Comes through the copses sighing to my ears,<br />
The infinite silence and the passing voice<br />
I must compare: remembering the seasons,<br />
Quiet in dead eternity, and the present,<br />
Living and sounding still. And into this<br />
Immensity my thought sinks ever drowning,<br />
And it is sweet to shipwreck in such a sea.<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
L'infinito<br />
<br />
Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle <br />
E questa siepe che da tanta parte <br />
Dell' ultimo orrizonte il guardo esclude. <br />
Ma sedendo e mirando interminati <br />
Spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani <br />
Silenzi, e profondissima quiete, <br />
Io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco <br />
Il cor non si spaura. E come il vento <br />
Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello <br />
Infinito silenzio a questa voce <br />
Vo comparando; e mi sovvien l'eterno, <br />
E le morte stagioni, e la presente <br />
E viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa <br />
Immensità s'annega il pensier mio: <br />
E il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare.<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
Footage from xstockvideo.com and stockfootageforfree.com<br />
Music: 'Ghost' by Somewhere Off Jazz Street<br />
Voice and Editing: Nic Sebastian<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3u3p-Fk50J4?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/3u3p-Fk50J4" target="_blank">Voicings</a> by Brenda Clews
<br />
<br />
Besides reading it at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/2011/12/snap-shot-of-group-of-writers-and.html" target="_blank">a poetry event</a> last week, I <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/2011/11/rehearsal.html" target="_blank">videoed 3 rehearsals</a> and memorized it for this videopoem of 'Voicings,' a prose poem that I wrote some years ago and revised recently.<br />
<br />
There is nothing wrong with the lowly poetry reading. Attending poetry readings is one of my favourite activities. Perhaps that enjoyment carries across. With my own videopoetry, when I perform a piece, it garners more views than my videos of imagery with a voiceover. I cannot do it - show myself - without a sense of humour, though.<br />
<br />
My fascination with aesthetics of multiplicity, multiples remains. Nodes, modules, events, thoughts, memories, everything is intersecting, widely missing the connection, intwined, separated, in the flow together or opposing each other. Vectors pulse everywhere in an ongoing processes of embodiment, momentary materializations.<br />
<br />
We are layered, enfolded. I am composed of at least two, and usually more. My dopplegängers often show up in my videos; sometimes they get carried away and dance the words of the world. Ventriloquist, yes, but the main figure speaks and she, the double, explains. Like captions. Or perhaps she is the emotion within the words. The spirit fighting to get out. Anyway, she takes over at the end, dancing, and some of the colours and shapes remind me of ancient Sumerian myth, and Polynesian spirit charms.<br />
<br />
She is Semiotic, rhizome, an off shoot of the woman speaking of words in a worded world.<br />
<br />
That is a solid silver Sari wedding belt that I am wearing as a necklace. I only wear it on special occasions.<br />
<br />
To read the poem, <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/2011/12/video-poetry-voicings.html" target="_blank">go to my blog</a>.<br />
<br />
_<br />
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.<br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-65995451360559440332011-12-02T19:34:00.001-05:002012-01-14T11:53:01.832-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'Caldo de cultivo/Culture Medium' by Phillipe and Lola Miralles<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32067571?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/32067571">Caldo de cultivo</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user8975075">Lola Miralles</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.
<br />
<br />
The Spanish original above. And an English translation below (how lovely is that?). It's an amazing video and those of us who speak and read English are very appreciative!<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32852070?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/32852070">Culture Medium</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/philipedson">Phillipe</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>. Subtitled in English.<br />
<br />
This film is powerful and primal. It moves by scenes that appear as surreal representations of a poem that is postmodern, and emerges from the depths of the maternal terrain. The poem struggles with birth, the body, the subjectivity of the mother/the writer, what creativity is. We never see a child, thankfully. In the history of art, birth was always about the child, the divine child. The mother's experience was invisible. She was merely the receptacle for the new subject, she through which the citizen was born.<br />
<br />
In <i>Caldo de cultivo/Culture Medium</i>, we begin with that richest of mantles, that umbilical sky of nutrients, the placenta, or, rather, a mass of weeds lapping in the waves that appears placental. It is a surprisingly realistic image. It is hard to look at, the mass of veins and arteries through which nutrients flowed from the mother to the child <i>in utero</i> and the waste that flowed back to be dispersed in her body. It is there, floating on the salt water, expelled; <i>Caldo de cultivo/Culture Medium</i> begins with the afterbirth.<br />
<br />
In the thumbnail still for the video, we see Lola, the poet herself, the shadow of the poet, curtains of light and something round, like a moon, or a paper lantern. That image appears and disappears in the scenes where we see Lola's silhouette, right way up or upside down, against the curtains. Is the round shape in the curtains an accident? Or a representation of the pregnant belly? Lola is not pregnant in the film poem. Yet her poem dredges through maternal imagery.<br />
<br />
Phillipe is an artist turned filmmaker. An artist who feels that <a href="http://www.philip-abstractions.blogspot.com/2010/11/end-of-painting.html" target="_blank">painting had come to its end</a>, that art galleries are museums of history. His films are a type of multi-media painting. He creates collages, assemblages with his camera and his film editing. <i>Caldo de cultivo/Culture Medium </i>explores the maternal terrain and the mute mother. But not directly. This makes his work truly brilliant.<br />
<br />
She is silent behind a net. The beautiful Spanish poet gazes at us behind a white net. She does not speak in the film, though we read her poem. <a href="http://supralterna.blogspot.com/2011/11/culture-medium.html" target="_blank">And what a poem it is!</a> We read cryptic words written in the mother's voice. She who is silent speaks. It is a difficult speaking, the maternal terrain is resistant to the language of culture.<br />
<pre><blockquote>
And in the girdle.
Rip the hard fabric and get to the flesh,
tear the flesh,
let
one among so many that still have to be
find the tortured way
(but so lively),
under the sheets
to give the final blow of air
needed for the harvest
there where
the tenderness of fluids found
the seed progression
sprouting with no miracles.
There is a nauseating garden
in the entrails of my bed.</blockquote>
</pre>
Phillipe's filmic images are strange, Surreal and superbly attuned to the core of the poet and her poem.<br />
<br />
The hand-held camera walk through the sand of the dunes with the immediacy of the depth-soundings, the clicking that is like a heartbeat of the soundtrack reminded me of travelling, into life perhaps. The footprints, others have gone before. Then the sea wind blowing the poet's hair in the room silhouetted against the curtains of light, and that moon shape that seems embedded in the scene by the filmmaker. The film is a visual poem by the filmmaker, by Phillipe. Back in the sand, we come to seagrass that, given the poem, the opening image that is like placental "entrails,"appears to my eye as pubic hair growing on the body of the mother become as large as the earth. We see the shadow of the filmmaker, and again, I feel he is foreshadowing his birth. Birth is metaphor for many things, isn't it.<br />
<br />
Back to the mute and beautiful Spanish poet behind the gauze, or netting, she asks us 'not to look "in the corny reflection/ of the ethereal and fanciful divas." This I read as the woman portrayed by the artist as femme fatale, as reflection of a male gaze and desire, misses the point. The mother is the mute founder of culture, a culture that ignores her, and silences her - except if she can speak as a "fanciful diva." Her deep knowledge of life and death may not cross the tongue of words.<br />
<br />
We are in a "reflux that weaves" in a windowless room of walls. There is anger in the writing (though not in the steady gaze of the beautiful poet): "The spleen that comes out when they try /to tear us apart from the child." The ropey veins, entrails, threat of being 'girdled' appear as the poet playfully rubs a nest of rope about her head: "And in the girdle. /Rip the hard fabric and get to the flesh, /tear the flesh." The section of the poem that I quote above appears in the subtitles while the poet plays with the tangled rope.<br />
<br />
We are deeply in embodiment, in "the tenderness of fluids." Again, I find the use of the word, "fluids" brings me into deep memory of the maternal body and its mess of fluids, spittle, waters, colostrum, milk, and the baby's fluids. The poem says, "the seed" sprouts "no miracles." The shots of her eyes is brilliant at this moment when we reflect on what she has seen, her wisdom, the knowledge of the mother who gives birth.<br />
<br />
The beach in the darkening light, and the base of the tree trunk calls to mind the tree of life, what upholds, and the camera, our sight, revolves under the shadows of the leaves of this tree. The lace of light through the silhouetted leaves again visually echoes the ropey textures of earlier images.<br />
<br />
Probably the central lines of the poem are: "There is a nauseating garden /in the entrails of my bed." Lola Miralles speaks them directly to the camera and to the audience of the film. It is the only time she speaks in the whole film.<br />
<br />
Then she is portrayed sideways, in a white sheet, behind small sticks and perhaps wire or rope. Is she giving birth? Is she lying in corpse pose? We do not know: "The waste of the helpless body /found mother soil." And, yes, "growing under the sun of the buttocks, /nurtured by all worldly secretions." The placental, birth canal image of bleached pubic hair like tiny stands of rope that appears next is pure Surreality. The hollow cave from which we all emerged is there, "blood, /bile, /sweat, /flux, /breath."<br />
<br />
Then we re-enter the garden. Is it Eden? It shifts and moves in 'flux' like the opening placental weeds. "The young vine trunks are now thick /enough to have sons like shoots /where fruit is bursting green." The film is black and white, there is no colour. It is stark, and strange.<br />
<br />
The final image is Frida Kahlo-like. Our Spanish beauty lies in an embroidered white nightgown on a bed of white sheets in corpse pose and the sheet is pulled back from her by unseen hands: "One more push and done, /the birth in the linen." Then she is upright with her eyes closed, and draped in strands of linen, or cloth. She is Madonna-like, and lifts a branch of leaves up over her head and out of the picture frame, "Not the first harvest of smooth golden grapes /cultivated in manure, though." A wind blows.<br />
<br />
A film poem to take your breath away with its profundity and beauty.<br />
<br />
<i>Caldo de cultivo/Culture Medium</i>: Actress and poem by <a href="http://supralterna.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Lola Miralles</a>; scenery and production assistance by Kenneth Pilgrim; filmed in Alicante and Urbanova, Spain, and Beverley, England; directed, and filmed and edited by <a href="http://www.philip-abstractions.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Philip David Edson</a>.<br />
<br />
<img border="0" height="179" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vHQ_qeOFvRg/TtlB1PpEbTI/AAAAAAAANR8/R9zr_BscwCI/s320/Caldo-de-cultivo.jpg" width="320" />
<br />
<br />
___<br />
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<br />
<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.<br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-32655857984588722232011-11-25T21:37:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:52:46.269-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'Saltwater' by Eleanor Rees and Glenn-emlyn Richards<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="563" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32033601?byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/32033601">Saltwater (2011)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/glemlyn">Glenn-emlyn Richards</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
A collaboration with poet Eleanor Rees. Reading by Lindsay Rodden.<br />
<br />
You will watch this, fascinated. And you will return to the film poem and watch again, and it will seem new, as if you had not seen all of it before. Each time you do this, it will be as if you had not seen it before. Did I watch this? Yes, of course. And yet it is provoking new insights, more marvel. How does a film do that?<br />
<br />
Between the reader, the poet, and the filmmaker artist, magic occurs. She is like Botticelli's <i>Venus</i>, is that why we are so transfixed? But she is an India ink figure, and not a fine Renaissance painting. The film work, the editing, brings her alive. How does her hair flow with the waves of the saltwater sea? Is it the call of the ocean itself?<br />
<br />
Glenn-emlyn Richards had created a one of the finest film poems anywhere. I treated a group to a series of video/film poems, only a few, because they tired very quickly - poetry is demanding enough on the page, let alone strung at you in a video where you can't slow down, re-read, consider before moving on - but someone said, the one with the woman, the drawing, the ocean, <i>that one</i> was my favourite. In unison, they all agreed.<br />
<br />
The animated images of the video travel like an imaginary documentary with images of the poem, but not with a photorealism. Rather we are in a world of the imagination of our world in both the poem and the film. Art on art. The way we cohere and collect our experiences in the artifice of our art presented without guile, simply.<br />
<br />
The simplicity unravels us. We fall in love with the film poem. That one we want to keep, starred, bookmarked. But it passes away, as all things must.<br />
<br />
And so I collect it here for you, so you may come back and journey again on the sea of <i>Saltwater</i>.<br />
<br />
_<br />
<i>Glenn-emylin Richards</i>, is a graphic designer, English television director, independent film-maker and musician. His films have been shown at many poetry film festivals. He currently lives in Normandy, France: <a href="http://www.wodum.co.uk/" target="_blank">wodum.co.uk/</a>.<br />
<a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/writers/profile.php?recordID=209953" target="_blank">Eleanor Rees</a> is an award-winning British poet and teacher of creative writing living in Liverpool. Lindsay Rodden is an Irish actress, playwright and author.
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RQpOt-tQfaw/TtL1lFQsHiI/AAAAAAAANMw/ZBzFet9SFig/s1600/Saltwater-Glenn-emlyn-Richards-WEB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RQpOt-tQfaw/TtL1lFQsHiI/AAAAAAAANMw/ZBzFet9SFig/s320/Saltwater-Glenn-emlyn-Richards-WEB.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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_<br />
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<br />
<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.<br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-67335376807265113452011-11-22T01:18:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:52:30.703-05:00Theoretical Mondays: Who Is Watching?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">(Because Mondays <i>should always</i> be theoretical.)</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
When a filmmaker approaches a poem or the work of a poet, how does he or she interpret the verbal images visually?<br />
<br />
I raise this question because I think a <i>literarian</i> (poet trained in literature) who videos/films a poem will approach it differently to a <i>filmmaker</i> (lover of poetry trained in film).<br />
<br />
A poet might envision the video/filmpoem as a writer creating a videopoem for an unknown audience - from the centre outwards, or from the words to an audio visual corollary; whereas, a filmmaker, familiar with traditional filmmaking techniques and a better grasp of audience, might approach from that position to the centre - the poem itself.<br />
<br />
Let me illustrate with a found image on which I have mapped this process (click on image for a larger view):<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0kG5FLwFokc/TsaaEmPCGuI/AAAAAAAANGs/5cAdwr4eMMo/s1600/VidPoFilmSpirals-BrendaClews2011-WEB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0kG5FLwFokc/TsaaEmPCGuI/AAAAAAAANGs/5cAdwr4eMMo/s400/VidPoFilmSpirals-BrendaClews2011-WEB.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
In my viewing and making of video/filmpoems over the past few years, I have noted differences between poets with no or little film training who make video/filmpoems and filmmakers who approach a poem with considerable experience and background in the art of filmmaking.<br />
<br />
Yet, despite the filmmaker seeming to have the advantage of knowledge and experience and a network of contacts in the film world, all video/filmpoems, by neophytes or professionals, seem to struggle to find a large audience. Video/filmpoetry is a fairly new genre and while there are many different styles one thing common almost across the board is the minuscule audience in comparison to, say, music videos or even trailers for full-length films.<br />
<br />
When I see the viewcounts on most of the filmpoems featured at VidPoFilm, I am saddened. There are many strong filmmakers who has crafted superb filmpoems, and yet the view counts are in the tens or hundreds rather than in the tens or hundreds of thousands as these films deserve.<br />
<br />
Personally I think it is a matter of training the public to see and understand the art form of the video/filmpoem. Difficulties viewers have with video/filmpoems is an area of focus in <i>VidPoFilm</i>. John Scott, <a href="http://vidpofilm.blogspot.com/2011/11/friday-videofilmpoem-two-elizabeth.html" target="_blank">whose Elisabeth Bishop poems were recently featured</a> by VidPoFilm, says, "I'm interested in expanding the audience for "poetry" to people who might not normally consider poems interesting because they seem old fashioned, dry and/or intellectual."<br />
<br />
If we go by the general view counts on YouTube or Vimeo, likely an 'expanded audience' will occur only if the video/filmpoems are aired on national television and shown and analyzed in classrooms around the world. Perhaps John Scott is in a position to enable this to happen with his Elizabeth Bishop series <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/2011/11/draft-of-article-for-theoretical.html?showComment=1321732485030#c1408413636435111222" target="_blank">of which he writes</a>: "Actually when the entire project is finished we have very ambitious educational goals -- all long term. Setting the groundwork for now."<br />
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_<br />
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-18082518642756202942011-11-18T21:05:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:52:16.200-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: Two Elizabeth Bishop poems filmed by John Scott<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WukgYKHaGdk/Tsblp4irMwI/AAAAAAAANG0/ypO3e5pP01w/s1600/SandpiperDrawing-ElizabethBishop-JohnScott.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WukgYKHaGdk/Tsblp4irMwI/AAAAAAAANG0/ypO3e5pP01w/s200/SandpiperDrawing-ElizabethBishop-JohnScott.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="http://magpieproductions.com/" target="_blank">John Scott is an independent filmmaker</a> and television producer. He has directed 14 projects, including documentaries, and currently is a professor in the Television-Radio Department at Ithaca College in New York. He has won many awards and his work is shown in film festivals around the world.<br />
<br />
The question I put to John in an email on the two filmpoems (<i>Sandpiper</i> and <i>One Art</i>) he sent to VidPoFilm was, "both films have a visual narrative that connects to the poem, reflects its images, intersects with the poem without becoming simple illustration.<br />
<br />
In creating a film poem, what is your intent? A new poem that emerges from the confluence of the art of a poet and filmmaker? Or a way to present a powerful and important poet's work to a wide audience?
Your work is beautiful. A joy to watch."<br />
<br />
He wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
I am not interested solely in being illustrative -- I am interested in at times being playful with the way the visuals/sounds and the words come together in an effort to use the expressive powers of visuals and sounds. There's lots of potential in the medium itself that I think might otherwise be lost if it is simply slaved word for word to the text. These two versions are especially free because they were kind of explorations in/experiments with using various techniques.</blockquote>
<br />
And further clarified with what he called "sort of the party line on style":<br />
<blockquote>
I believe the beauty of Bishop’s poetry is that it is so loaded with the spirit of the moment, in the fragmentary, in the lush, in the juxtaposition of contrasting images and in the point of view of its subjects. What’s needed to make this come alive is a lyrical visual style to re-interpret this world into the cinematic mode. The movie needs to make use of the expressive tools that can come with the cinematic voice including techniques like time exposure, time-lapse photography, play with screen size and aspect ratio, multiple-exposure and slow motion. The result will at times be highly expressive in an effort to give the world of the poetry a magical or a heightened point of view that will contrast with the more traditional feel of the narrative segments.</blockquote>
In these two filmpoems, you'll see many cinematic techniques, Bokeh, split screens, time lapse, different colours, but the images connect to the poems, recognizably. They are not impressionistic, abstract pieces that try to capture the mood or feeling evoked by the poems but are rooted in narrative. It is not a traditional narrative, though. Rather, we see a visual narrative that accompanies the readings of the poems but that does not literally portray or overtake the poems they are representing. There is a rhythm of camera angles and repetitions that gives a cadence or a musicality to the visual images as they unfold through the filmpoems. I particularly like the voices - the clarity of the readings in both pieces is superb, as is the timing. And the young girl's voice in <i>Sandpiper</i> is, of course, arresting. Also the movement of a central image, a sandpiper in <i>Sandpiper</i> and a dandelion seedhead in <i>One Art</i>, into drawing, from film photographic image to hand-drawn animated image is beautiful. These are both superb filmpoems. Do watch, and enjoy.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fZyj3gXEUis?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
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direct link: <a href="http://youtu.be/fZyj3gXEUis" target="_blank">Sandpiper</a><br />
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From the notes at YouTube: "<i>"Sandpiper" is a poem that was written by Elizabeth Bishop in 1965 and it is believed that it was based on observations she made on a trip she made as an adult back to Nova Scotia. Bishop's adult life took her in many directions and places, and she has explicitly compared herself to the sandpiper and (presumably) both of their quests to endlessly seek (enlightenment?) through careful observation.</i>"<br />
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<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pAiik7SKXX8?rel=0" width="750"></iframe>
<br />
direct link: <a href="http://youtu.be/pAiik7SKXX8" target="_blank">One Art</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://magpieproductions.com/" target="_blank">Director’s Statement</a>: <i>At the age of six after losing her father and then her mother Elizabeth Bishop was forced to leave Great Village, Nova Scotia -- a town whose distinct oral traditions and whose warm and colourful characters had an affirming, restorative power on her. This shock set in motion a lifelong quest for Bishop (a woman who would become one of the twentieth century’s best poets) to find home and the peace of mind she had once experienced as a girl. Her quest had many tragic consequences in her restless adulthood, but she solves the riddle of how to lose in her old age, and in her poetry that engagingly re-imagines her early years in Nova Scotia.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
John Scott says, "There's a larger project in the works here and it's spelled out completely by accident and really in too much detail here:
<a href="http://elizabethbishopcentenary.blogspot.com/2011/10/filmmaker-john-d-scott-shares.html" target="_blank">http://elizabethbishopcentenary.blogspot.com/2011/10/filmmaker-john-d-scott-shares.html</a>"<br />
<br />
Please <a href="http://magpieproductions.com/" target="_blank">join his mailing list</a> (click on <i>Elizabeth Bishop Project</i>) to be updated on the progress of this exciting filmpoetry project.<br />
<br />
_<br />
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<br />
<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.<br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-89851470770589451552011-11-11T20:37:00.000-05:002012-01-14T11:52:04.125-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'outside my black hole' by Steven McCabe<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yYKDPPVnM5o?rel=0" width="750"></iframe><br />
direct link: <a href="http://youtu.be/yYKDPPVnM5o">outside my black hole</a> by <a href="http://www.stevenmccabe.ca/" target="_blank">Steven McCabe</a><br />
<br />
<i>outside my black hole</i> (2011) is a visual poetry film juxtaposing urban traffic, ink drawings, and dance. It features the poetry and drawings of Steven McCabe, who is a Canadian visual artist, poet, filmmaker and arts educator.<br />
<br />
Steven works with a team to produce his superb film poems. However he manages this collaboration financially, hopefully with grants and backers, the results are nothing short of magnificent. Steven McCabe's film poems are among the best works in this genre being produced in Canada today.<br />
<br />
If you would like to explore the film poetry of this multidisciplinary, multi-media Canadian artist and poet and director, check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/McCabeSteven" target="_blank">his channel at YouTube</a>; all his films are also listed at <a href="http://www.stevenmccabe.ca/Film.html" target="_blank">his website</a>.<br />
<br />
I would urge you to watch <i>outside my black hole</i>, the filmography is stunning, and then to play it again, but close your eyes and listen.<br />
<br />
Steven McCabe is a poet at the height of his powers. This poem interweaves a lifetime of reflection, writing, feeling, and, listening to it, I think, it can't get any richer than this. Or more simple.<br />
<br />
It is as if a mythopoeic poet has introduced the simplicity of Zen meditation into his oeuvre. The cascade of images that collide and separate, echo and reverberate, from prehistory through to the fast-paced, urban computer-literate world of hyper-speeds, terrorisms, and space travel is read without drama in an even voice paced to the accompanying visual images and is as mesmerizing as it is breath-taking.<br />
<br />
In the film, the drive through the city at night where the lights take on the quality of dream images of inner light opens with translucent circles that feel like we are entering a tunnel. The mysterious dancer in red echoes the kinetic qualities of the poem's images. She is often partially presented, for instance she is dancing with her arms, or as the vivid red petals of a dancer who we don't see all of.<br />
<br />
The most stunning aspect visually for me is the way Steven's drawings are presented. If you cut out an image in Photoshop and save it on a transparent background as a .psd file, you can layer that image into Final Cut Pro. Perhaps this was the technique used here.<br />
<br />
The drawings appear and disappear like icons in a hallucinated reality, as if they have come directly out of the symbolic unconscious. They are presented exactly as they are, only cut from their pages, and collaged into the film. They appear as tribal totems, inscribed with hermeneutic symbols, the dense black India ink lines layered sometimes into cave-like forms where figures appear.<br />
<br />
I've seen some of these images at sites where Steven has posted them and have been awed by their resonances with ancient Greek myth, Indigenous Native American myth and spirituality, the archetypes of Jung's depth psychology, Surrealism, and their impenetrable raw emotive power. The scenes they depict are ones of rupture, hope, connection. Despair, yes, but it transforms into the living moment of now.<br />
<br />
Nothing remains as it is in McCabe's work, but is always transforming, as he uncovers layers, exploring the self as an archeology of personal and collective memories.<br />
<br />
In <i>outside my black hole,</i> we find a central metaphor of seeing, in our rushed modern lives, caught in a black hole that sucks the promise of our ancestry into its high speed vortex also becomes the black pupil of our eyes, yours and mine, that crucial tunnel that enables us to see the world, and where the world enters us.<br />
<br />
Our pupils, black holes, are enlarged at night, to let in more light, and we see this echoed in the nighttime shots, the glazes of hypnotic lights just on the edge of blur. We are immersed in a "poetry noir," as he writes in his notes, and see with our night vision.<br />
<br />
And yet, as he quotes Eliot's <a href="http://www.artofeurope.com/eliot/eli2.htm" target="_blank">The Hollow Men</a>,<br />
<br />
<i>The eyes are not here</i><br />
<i>There are no eyes here</i><br />
<i>In this valley of dying stars</i><br />
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In an email, Steven wrote, that, besides his Artist's Statement for the show at Propeller (reproduced below), "the video of course also deals with a rather grim assessment of where we are at in this time of history as a species."<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>outside my black hole</i> was screened at Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts (Toronto) in Oct/Nov 2011 as the installation component of Steven McCabe's exhibition <i>A Cathartic Document</i> showing 66 new ink drawings created during 2010-2011.<br />
<br />
Video editing & technical support @ A Cathartic Document by Konrad Skręta<br />
Poetry/drawings/narrationSteven McCabe<br />
DancePaula Skimin<br />
Music composed and performed byWilliam Beauvais & Barry Prophet<br />
Director of PhotographyEric Gerard<br />
EditingKonrad Skręta<br />
© 2011 Steven McCabe<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small;">from </span><a href="http://www.propellerctr.com/" target="_blank">Propeller's</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small;"> website:</span><br />
<h2 class="contentheading" style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; font-weight: normal;">Steven McCabe</span></h2>
<h2 class="contentheading" style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif;">
<a href="http://www.propellerctr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=234:oct-26-nov-6--north-gallery--steve-mccabe--a-cathartic-document--&catid=36:future-exhibits&Itemid=56" style="font-weight: normal;" target="_blank">A Cathartic Document</a></h2>
<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif;">
<div style="font-size: 11px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;">Oct/Nov 2011, at Propeller in Toronto</span></div>
</div>
<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EbOCARzi8Vw/Tr2U579wXlI/AAAAAAAAM9A/x9g_3zWh668/s1600/A-Cathartic-Document-Image-WEB.jpeg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left; margin-right: 8px;" /></div>
<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif;">
<strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Multidisciplinary artist Steven McCabe presents 70 pen & ink drawings created during 2010 & 2011 plus video installation based upon his most recent short film.</span></strong><br />
<strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></strong></div>
<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif;">
<em>"During a two-year period I created over 500 drawings with pen & ink as an instinctive response to pivotal personal events. Drawing opens a route to my unconscious where I depict the illusory nature of existence with poetic noir. The internal and external worlds enter and exit one another. The immediacy of ink is a perfect medium for expressing casualties of remembrance. These drawings are not an illustration of ideas but rather manifestations of a moment in reality – a fragment of altered consciousness. Lines mimicking the fluidity of a brushstroke document the workings of psyche and shifting emotional realities. Marks on paper scratch like a machete hacking through the jungle of ego and existentialism to reach the raw edges of myth."</em></div>
<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: right;">
- Steven McCabe</div>
<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: right;">
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<div style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;">
Artist website: <a href="http://www.stevenmccabe.ca/" style="color: #4c4c4c; cursor: pointer; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">www.stevenmccabe.ca</a></div>
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<br />
<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.<br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i> and <i>poetryfilm</i> - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-28410947858642244652011-11-04T17:16:00.000-04:002012-01-14T11:51:44.711-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM:'SHED' by Christina McPhee<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
This week we grapple with the boundaries of what a film or video poem is. I almost called these articles, <i>Videopoetries</i>. <a href="http://vimeo.com/30500212" target="_blank">SHED</a> is a <i>videopoetry. </i>It is an art film about light and drawing through time in a shed that is as high as it is long.<br />
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<a href="http://www.christinamcphee.net/about-2/" target="_blank">Christina McPhee's</a> drawings were filmed over two years and edited as a video montage of screens with varying opacities and speeds. The drawings are like inscriptions. They remind me of free-form pictograms, dream writing, glyphs of an inner symbolism. They are an occult calligraphy, a concrete poem-in-motion, scrawling into being under the artist's brush. The sound in the film is the artist's brush creating the drawings. She writes:<br />
<blockquote>
I make very large scale drawings using white rolls of watercolor and drawing papers. The drawings are usually created in a horizontal orientation working from right to left, like writing without backtracking or extensive editing. When not executed horizontally, the drawings are also created in a vertical orientation and worked from top to bottom like a scroll. The markings are calligraphic and topologic and do not represent content. They consider intensities and nodes. I consider depth of field from point to point moving from the implications of the last move into a new territory. Each drawing gesture generates the next.</blockquote>
This is an automatic writing. A poetry. I consider SHED a genre-crossing piece that brings together a poetry of drawing and video editing. It is a <i>multiplicity</i>, a place of vectors. The nodes and intensities are democratic, without hierarchy; they are nomads drawn into being by the brush of India and acrylic ink and red paint encrusted on the paper by the artist.<br />
<br />
Christina calls her drawings <i>Teorema</i>, after <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teorema-Silvana-Mangano/dp/B000A7BQRY" target="_blank">the Pasolini film</a> of the same name which she speaks about in the video below SHED. Of her studio space, which reminded me of a stark meditation cabin, she writes:<br />
<blockquote>
A shed is a barracks, a shelter and it is hermeneutic (pertaining to its own secrets). The shed is a place of elemental becoming and the drawings develop the space of the shed just as the shed develops the space of the drawings. Mutually they create a performative condition for video installation as drawing. The accumulation of layered montage in multiple takes gives rise to a series of videos.... the video creates drawing as architectural event.</blockquote>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/30500212?title=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
direct link: Christina McPhee's, <i><a href="http://vimeo.com/30500212" target="_blank">SHED / cinema clip / 2011</a></i><br />
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<a href="http://www.christinamcphee.net/shed-cubed/" target="_blank">At her website</a>, we find further clarification:<br />
<blockquote>
During two year’s time, SHED CUBED traces the heliotropic movement of drawings across diurnal passages of light and darkness in an austere interior of concrete floors and white walls. SHED CUBED is ‘shedding’ drawings. The drawings accumulate, re-materialize, and melt away in the space of the shed….<br />
<br />
SHED CUBED reflects on the materiality of video as a drawing medium and architectural body.<br />
<br />
SHED regards the effect of transverse light, as the sunlight moves through the space from early morning onwards… The video footage captures the slow changes of the light and the rapid changes of the drawing. In post production, the video format becomes a long strip, rather than the typical rectangle– a sequencing and serial effect. The footage is compressed up to a limit of 900 percent. The shed is hermeneutic (pertaining to its own secrets) but the transverse light inside the shed explodes the intimacy of such a secret space, brings it into the light. Effectively the light exposes the drawings as a writing process that iterates line after line in accumulations, refrains, recollections and recursions. Following the drawings, the video montage sheds time in layers, in a profusion of moments…the installation recapitulates the shed.</blockquote>
You can view <a href="http://www.christinamcphee.net/tag/shed/" target="_blank">the full series of SHED's</a> "drawings as writing process" at her website, where she calls them a <i>teorema</i> of glyphs, nomads, aplophorids, chromogenics, lightjets. They are also reminiscent of marine life (she speaks of shrimp being thrown on the deck of a boat by the sea during a marine ecology project) and insects, of the underpinnings of larger living ecosystems.<br />
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I hope you enjoy my choice for this week's featured videopoem, and as you watch SHED, and the articulation of its processes and some of the inspirations and aims that Christina offers at a presentation below, you are inspired.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xfwCZcjr38E?rel=0" width="750"></iframe><br />
direct link: <a href="http://youtu.be/xfwCZcjr38E" target="_blank">Christina McPhee: <i>Shed</i></a><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pBeOGbPuhck/TrPffoDYWlI/AAAAAAAAM6U/Na5xvhODheI/s1600/ChristinaMcPheeSHED.jpg"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pBeOGbPuhck/TrPffoDYWlI/AAAAAAAAM6U/Na5xvhODheI/s200/ChristinaMcPheeSHED.jpg" /></a><br />
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<i style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.</div>
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i>, yes, and <i>poetryfilm</i>, yes - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my videopoetry group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-74817110217635073372011-10-28T17:15:00.000-04:002012-01-14T11:51:14.778-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'Ground' by Ginnetta Correli<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="425" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/22457089?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
direct link: <a href="http://vimeo.com/22457089" target="_blank">Ground</a><br />
<br />
Written and Narrated: <a href="http://filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">Alastair Cook</a><br />
Directed and Edited: <a href="http://vimeo.com/ginnettacorreli" target="_blank">Ginnetta Correli</a><br />
Soundtrack: <a href="http://soundcloud.com/bpolar/pierrepoints-epitaph" target="_blank"><i>Pierrepoint’s Epitaph</i></a> by <a href="http://web.mac.com/kegdriesen/iWeb/bpolar/welcome.html" target="_blank">Dirk Drieson</a><br />
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<i>Ground</i> has an impenetrable quality. The film imagery, poem and reading approach each other without quite meeting. In that circle of visual and verbal imagery and the emotion of the voice of the reader, we witness a flame dancing without knowing who lit it, who blows on it, or why it goes out, if it does.<br />
<br />
Something profound happens. But what? Is the poem notes on death and what resurrects us through life? Or the dream of a life?<br />
<br />
At the end, the man... but you must watch to see this.<br />
<br />
I am reminded of Médem's <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_Lucia" target="_blank">Lucía y el sexo</a></i>, where the island rests on a cacophony of unmappable caves that constitute its base and that are not attached to the seabed, but float, and where one of the characters disappears forever into.<br />
<br />
As in dream, the images in <i>Ground</i> are vivid, strong, and reveal something important if elusive. The images of the poem and the film are are strewn in a landscape of inner symbolism. A motorcycle. An empty road. The shadow of a figure, perhaps the filmmaker filming the scene. A small white snake lying in the road. A man holding onto the lip of rock in a cave hole. A gloved hand picking up the poisonous snake and placing it carefully on the shoulder of the road. An abandoned hut where the outside seems inside, empty save for the crumpled paper of the poet, a bed of rocks and light.<br />
<br />
This is a surreal filmpoem; it has a European art film feel to it. Like when watching an <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000264/" target="_blank">Almodóvar</a>, forget logic, for a rational approach to understanding won't reveal anything. As you seek to embrace the meaning of the film, you find mindfulness here like a Zen koan.<br />
<br />
You can't quite put it together. Rather, feel the deep angst the film produces. That's where the film is unfolding in your consciousness as a message, a predicament, a riddler of the paradoxes of life.<br />
<br />
Or the immanence of death.<br />
<br />
<i>Ground</i> is hauntingly beautiful, in a disturbing way. In the embracing mindfulness, a poetry of poison, death, loss, and beauty, all of which is natural, found in the natural world, amidst a surreality. We feel cross-currents, disambiguations, and yet the over-arching journey metaphor of Cook's minimalist poetry, and the bond of love he speaks of, yes, living is like this. Simply a superb film.<br />
<br />
Do watch. The two minutes and 35 seconds will become a dream you are having.<br />
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_<br />
<br />
Ginnetta Correli's blog: <a href="http://lambchop2.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">beatie's journal</a>.<br />
<br />
The poem is composed of <a href="http://networkedblogs.com/p16551971" target="_blank">haiku</a> written by Alastair, which you can find at <a href="http://networkedblogs.com/p16551971" target="_blank">written in my hand</a>, his blog (which is well worth exploring).<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sAKWXmoAvW0/Tqq6n1vvnGI/AAAAAAAAM1o/aySsuqGFRKA/s1600/Ground-GinnettaCorelli.jpg"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sAKWXmoAvW0/Tqq6n1vvnGI/AAAAAAAAM1o/aySsuqGFRKA/s200/Ground-GinnettaCorelli.jpg" /></a><br />
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i>, yes, and <i>poetryfilm</i>, yes - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my videopoetry group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-54336805856697915392011-10-21T14:14:00.000-04:002012-01-14T11:50:59.189-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'immersion' by Sheila Packa and Kathy McTavish<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="411" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LgWdB756Db8?rel=0" width="750"></iframe><br />
<br />
direct link: <a href="http://youtu.be/LgWdB756Db8" target="_blank">immersion /2</a><br />
<br />
This week an immersive video experience for you. A collaborative music video poem by <a href="http://www.sheilapacka.com/" target="_blank">Sheila Packa</a> and <a href="http://www.cellodreams.com/" target="_blank">Kathy McTavish</a>. The poem, <i>Immersion</i>, is Sheila's, and the voiceover is Sheila's reading; the cello is played by Kathy. While both Sheila and Kathy chose the images for the video, Kathy composed it.<br />
<br />
The film and the cello work marvelously together. Kathy, to quote from her <a href="http://www.cellodreams.com/" target="_blank">website</a>, is "a composer/free-style cellist. she uses chance and generative/organic forms to create everything from sparse, minimalist spaces to dense, orchestral landscapes." <i>immersion /2</i> manages to be both sparse and minimalist, while maintaining a density of a natural orchestral landscape in the background. My sense of the music is similar to the visual images, the way they are composed, layered with a sparse simplicity on the surface and yet we find representations of the elements densely underlaid - wind, water, light, bird, earth, fields in bloom.<br />
<br />
Sheila's reading is liquid and silky and flows with the stark and sonorous sounds of the cello and the shifting lights and colours of the video itself. Nature and natural processes are everywhere in her writing and in her reading. We enter a <i>Tao</i> of living through water that <i>is</i> water. With our inner ears, we can hear the flowing tides and the birds in a profoundly open landscape. Sheila and Kathy live on Lake Superior, a lake I found deeply mystical when I travelled around it some years ago. Her poem is from her collection, <a href="http://www.sheilapacka.com/" target="_blank">Undertow</a>. I quote from her <a href="http://sheilapacka.blogspot.com/2010/09/synergy-poems-music-image.html" target="_blank">poetry blog</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"(immersion)<br />
<br />
water resists<br />
breaks without breaking<br />
flows along invisible scores<br />
courses between continuous<br />
ends, begins<br />
<br />
doesn't resist<br />
touches, touches, turns<br />
over the same skin...." </blockquote>
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While I could rhapsodize on this music video poem all day, let me close with mention of Kathy's video technique, which is likely an original interpretation of the Bokeh style.<br />
<br />
Kathy has explored <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh" target="_blank">Bokeh</a> photography techniques, and puts her knowledge of this Japanese art form to amazing results in her videos. She uses stop motion, and to my eye, layers photograph tracks so that they emerge and recede with the flow of the music. She likely has used a cut-out shape over the camera lense to make that bird/wave shape which permutates and shifts in changing light patterns throughout the video and is perfect for Sheila's poem; but I couldn't guess how she composed the weave of slow motion of brilliant colours towards the end. Unlike traditional Bokeh, there is no foreground subject. Rather we are immersed in an ever-shifting slow-moving background. It is as if she composes abstract expressionist artwork before our eyes, painting with light and colour. As Sheila writes in <a href="http://sheilapacka.blogspot.com/2010/09/synergy-poems-music-image.html" target="_blank">her blog</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
The still motion images are created by the use of DSLR camera, a Canon EO5. Kathy has been exploring Bokeh effects. It is an artistic technique initially used by some Japanese photographers who enjoyed the aesthetics of blur. She comes to this work by way of music; in fact the images are created in the same way that she creates music in her studio. Her echo pedal and harmonics perhaps are a musical expression of blur. She likes the 'infinite between.' She began using images in her search for techniques of writing scores. The images evoke meaning; to her, they create a synesthesia and seem to have their own sounds.</blockquote>
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Sheila Packa and Kathy McTavish are two brilliant, creative women making, in my estimation, collaborative masterpieces.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yXlZeMT3FPw/TsAC19GlgiI/AAAAAAAANDE/Zp70ODxOgBI/s1600/immersion-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="111" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yXlZeMT3FPw/TsAC19GlgiI/AAAAAAAANDE/Zp70ODxOgBI/s200/immersion-2.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>.<br />
<br />
VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i>, yes, and <i>poetryfilm</i>, yes - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
<br />
Visit my videopoetry group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
<br />
Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5009261503544512466.post-60210678732063126902011-10-14T14:09:00.000-04:002012-01-14T11:50:35.050-05:00FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: A Hundred and Forty Suns by Jonathan Blair<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="http://brendaclews.com/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Brenda Clews</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="422" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/19783315?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="750"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/19783315">A hundred and forty suns</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/jonathanblair">Jonathan Blair</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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<br />
Brilliant! From start to finish. I watched in delighted awe. The animation, the lights, the sound. I feel shaken out of my realism and like I've been to a hallucinatory summer cottage.<br />
<br />
Let me describe my viewing.<br />
<br />
The clicking rainbow lights flash on and in the male animated character's body upon waking, the fast cuts match the sound track of a kind of scurrying, insect-like scurrying on a hard floor. As the character rises and walks the dark room turns into machines, cog wheels, factories. Caught in the factory, in a time-marshalled setting, a vision seems to grow out of the man that is a pulsing red blob that perhaps represents anger. He begins to go crazy in the factory which seems more and more a nightmarish prison. Then it is as if the sun itself draws near as psychedelic visions take over. His body begins to dissolve into the lights. After the Kafkaesque beginning with insect-like noises that become a mechanical factory of looped wheels and cogs, the organic sound of drumming as the light increases is warm, comforting. And the light is shining, shining into the perception of the animated character who responds with joy, and into the screen where we as viewers feel that pleasure. Ultimately this film imparts joy, beauty, forgiveness, transcendence, the pulse of life renewed anew.<br />
<br />
A brilliant little animated film, <i>A hundred and forty suns</i>, was a group effort. It was produced at Duncan of Jordanston College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee in 2009. The film was inspired by a poem by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mayakovsky">Vladimir Mayakovsky</a> (1893-1930), a Russian futurist: <i>An Extraordinary Adventure which Befell Vladimir Mayakovsky in a summer cottage, </i>and especially by this line:<br />
<br />
"A hundred and forty suns in one sunset blazed,<br />
and summer rolled into July;"<br />
<br />
Thanks are given to a dozen people, as well as the all the students and staff in DoJ Animation.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xidzRU3p1N0/TsACaMxOK7I/AAAAAAAANC4/BjRobUN82sA/s1600/A-Hundred-and-Forty-Suns.jpg"><img border="0" height="112" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xidzRU3p1N0/TsACaMxOK7I/AAAAAAAANC4/BjRobUN82sA/s200/A-Hundred-and-Forty-Suns.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<i>VidPoFilm</i> is edited and curated by Brenda Clews, who blogs at <a href="http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rubies in Crystal</a>. <br />
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VidPoFilm: <i>videopoetry</i>, yes, and <i>poetryfilm</i>, yes - <i>poetry</i> the key that slides either way. VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com. <br />
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Visit my videopoetry group on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry" target="_blank">vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry</a>. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.<br />
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Video and film poetry sites to check out: <a href="http://www.bcactionpoet.org/index.html" target="_blank">Billy Collins Action Poetry</a>, <a href="http://www.cruziocafe.com/" target="_blank">Blue's Cruzio Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.bornmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Born Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.tv-station.nl/poetica/" target="_blank">Camera Poetica</a>, <a href="http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=commaprojects" target="_blank">Comma Film</a>, <a href="http://www.filmpoem.com/" target="_blank">FilmPoem</a>, <a href="http://motionpoems.com/" target="_blank">Motionpoems</a>, <a href="http://movingpoems.com/" target="_blank">Moving Poems</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/" target="_blank">Rabbit Light Movies</a>, <a href="http://rattapallax.org/blog/" target="_blank">Rattapallax</a>, <a href="http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/" target="_blank">Synesthesia</a>, <a href="http://www.thecontinentalreview.com/" target="_blank">The Continental Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html" target="_blank">UbuWeb: film and video</a>, <a href="http://viralverse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Viral Verse</a>.Brenda Clewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400505552810078505noreply@blogger.com0