the problem of ending

With this, my last post, the day before submission, I wish to write a few words on the problematic of ending. As I’ve mentioned previously the work comes to a point where I have to draw the line, whether it be through the work (almost) erasing itself, running into the physical limits of the site, or the time limits of the situation.

Here this ‘live’ journal comes to an end with the denouement of the documentation of my thoughts and processes. As I have attempted to address the ineffable, the excess of what can be made available for representation, much of what I have said in this blog may seem to undermine, contradict and double back on itself. Fittingly I am struggling to articulate this end post and feel it must remain somewhat sketchy and insufficient.

So to the ‘final’ resolution of my work in Plimsoll gallery cannot be viewed in its site of production and intended exhibition as the footage from the installation, the final installation, cannot be played back due to the limitations of the gallery itself. Hence I shall leave the work here, posted in clips (due to the restrictions of this blog) hoping it allows the work to be kept perpetually ‘live’, existing beyond itself, beyond being contained as a final completed work. Remaining as representation of a re-presentation.

projected studio footage (at the end of honours)

Unsure of the outcome, I took the opportunity of a pilot show we were having for our honours submission to take my way of working to the nth degree, projecting most of the footage to date this year ontop of itself.

Using two laptops and two projectors I projected previous recordings of myself working in the studio in consecutive order. I filmed this projection then projected it back on one projector, whilst projecting the next archived footage ontop of it. The result was a consecutive build of past workings, a manual compression of previous work into one sequence. The ‘final’ version, containing 6 layers of footage was so abstracted to the point of being near invisible, so I decided to leave it as a consecutive build, allowing one layer to come in at a time.

battling with layers

Due to the nature of re-recording projection, initial layers become so embedded in the work they begin to erase themselves. There is constant struggle for me in losing initial layers and the attempt to perpetually keep the work live through re-projecting and re-recording it.

Although I am interested in a cyclical process it is not so much as an eternal return of absurdist self-looping. There is a sense of futility to true repetition, a process with no outcome as each loop replaces the next. I battle with this process of working yet also retaining some ‘proof of existence’ that each layer has been manually enacted, recorded, mediated and re-enacted.

Christine Kozlov ‘s Information: NoTheory (1971) works as a process of the continuous replacement of information. Through a continuous tape recording the representation of the now perpetually records over the former recorded information, having a two-minute life before it is erased by the new. Unable to be played back at any point the work remains as an imperceptible sound image that exists only in theory (despite its title). Proof of existence does in fact exist in actuality, but is based on probability- as the recorded information is never actually heard. This form of reproduction without representation may be more radical than representation without reproduction, but I feel it remains dry and does not give alot to the viewer, being far more satisfying as a concept than as a physical work.

Unlike Kozlov’s work I am creating a duration in which past and present can co-exist, being simultaneously present. The point at which I generally stop is just before the restrictions of the site or medium make the layers become too abstracted to be recognisable. It is important for a viewer to be able to read the history of the work, within the work. I have toyed with the idea of re-recording over footage, similar to Kozlov, but allowing it to be visible through projecting the former layers recording. The previous layer would not exist except in this re-recording of the projection - and in memory. Taping over the same tape for example (sorry convoluted I know, I am still nutting out the technicalities of this). However being the archivist I am, and part of the reason I continue to work on tape is that I like to have each layer recorded and available as independent footage, even if I am only the one aware of these individual layers. Perhaps this lies in a future project when I record over the recordings themselves, perhaps with the same action simultaneously documenting and resisting existing as documentation.

work, mediation or documentation?

I’m interested in prompting this question in the viewer when encountering my work as its something that I’m eternally questioning myself. Perhaps through making the work ‘live’ (I’m keeping it within scare quotes as I’m starting to think of the work as being live without myself necessarily being present) the work can exist as all three. Is there a way to make a viewer experience production, mediation or documentation of a work interdependently?

I read somewhere about a piece by Peter Richards, I think from a body of work called ‘Performance Lucinda’ where he performs in one room with the audience being in an adjoining darkened room. The audience experiences the ‘live’ performance through a small hole in the wall which projects the live Richards onto unexposed photographic paper. Hence the audience witnesses the documentation of the event rather than the event itself; through the performances' remediation as documentation. It would be like memaking a viewer watch my work through the camera itself, even though they are physically present at the same time and in the same site that Iam performing in.

This also makes me think about how a shadow or reflection is evidence of presentness and how this could potentially be altered. Often in my works the real time ‘actual’ me is given away by my shadow in the projection light. Perhaps there is a way to separate it to further confuse what is present and what is past action. Then again maybe its an important tell tale sign, an opening in the work, exposing its construction. a little.

liveness and mediation

In reading Phillips Auslander’s Liveness, Performance in a Mediatized Culture, I came across an anecdote concerning The Doors in the early stages of their fame. Having been filmed playing on a television show, they wanted to be able to watch their performance as it was televised and so requested a TV be placed in their dressing room. As their segment had not yet come on before they had to play, they simply took it on stage with them and placed in on top of an amplifier with the sound turned down. When the segment started they stoped playing live mid song, turned up the television volume, and sat on the floor of the stage watching themselves, their backs to the audience. When their segment was over the resumed playing. The mediation of a previous event hence not only becomes part of the live event, it takes priority over it.

Traditionally a concept of the ‘live’ must remain in the present; the event happens simultaneously to the moment it is viewed. Most often the mediatisation of the original event does not take precedence, rather it is based on and around the authentic live moment. I am interested in how this can be reversed. How the ‘live’ or could I say the present action is dictated by the former recorded past action. In playing a past event simultaneous to a present event there is a sense of spatial co-presence alongside a temporal simultaneity. Past and present moments physically coexist. In (re)screen projection I projected the mediated on an opposing wall to the live action, forcing the viewer to chose between which they viewed, as despite being interdependent, neither could be viewed at the same time. When The Doors stopped playing to watch their mediatised performance there became a prioritising of the past event over the present.

Yet a television placed on stage with the sound turned up is not replacing the live performance. Rather through its smaller size and being re-viewed outside of itself (in the larger context of a seeing it on television, on stage, at a concert) it becomes abstracted. It becomes a prior performance embedded within a present performance. At this moment the crowd cannot experience the prior moment as it was but they can begin to realise the presentness of the particular situation which they are viewing, how it has been and continues to be modelled by a past performance and how this break in performance they are witnessing now, may model a future performance. The mediatised performance becomes a referent of the live and vice versa from one we can expect the other to behave in a similar way.

(re)crit

An attempt to be making and presenting at the same time, projecting the footage from a previous studio critique back in order to have a conversation with my past self about my work. This is the first time I worked with placing viewers in the position of addressing a moment which they have previously lived and having to respond to footage of their past selves. Perhaps part of the success in this piece is that it can be pulled off in a crit situation as it is often a repeat performance of presenting and talking about recent work with the same audience, particularly in relation to my practice where what I say about one work can easily be applied to the next. There is an inherent struggle to be subject and object at once as I have to flip between performing and presenting. The projected footage at moments seemed to correspond to real time - either answering a question or nodding to a comment. Along with this there was also times where the footage did not meet up, moments where I had to struggle to talk over my projected self, or moments where I moved out of the ‘set’ either in real time or in the projection where I became skewed or was projected onto someone. Hence the viewer can disengage from the status of their reflected selves (which in actuality is merely a projection and can-not respond to the present)and rediscover the real-time of their own history. A sense of presentness create through the suspended time. As the projection lapses out the work can be seen as an independent event, exchanging the atemporality of repetition for the temporality of change.

orphée & the manual special effect

Jean Cocteau’s use of special effects revel in their artifice, making themselves known as special effects. There is a sense of immediacy, like a direct magic trick, as what we see has actually happened in front of the camera. As Orphée passes through the ‘mirror’ into the underworld, in reality he moves into an identical adjoining set.

I find the scene this scene where Orphée moves through purgatory fascinating. Heurtebise leads an Orphée who has been pre-recorded on location and is being projected back behind Heurtebise. The dialogue is choreographed to make it appear as if they are conversing in real time. The choreography even extends to a passing vendor who appears in the foreground set with Heurtebise then after moving out of shot appears in the projected footage. As he moves from one space to another it initially appears as no time as passed, as if the foreground and the location footage as one and the same thing. Yet as the scene progresses there is a sense of something not quite right, a move out of the linear path of time, as there is an interaction between a past and present moment.

The manual special effect continues to be an important way of working in my practice. Through physically manipulating projected footage, the projection apparatus and the camera itself there is a sense of immediacy as I work with choreographing myself ‘on set’, in real time with former footage. There is an honesty and integrity to this way of working with no intention to trick a viewer with postproduction illusions. Clumsy and awkward smoke and mirrors rather than digital effects. Through manually creating the effect there is the chance for the work to fall apart to expose the struggle of its creation and re-creation, allowing a viewer to ‘figure out’ my attempts to make a past and present moment interact.