The test edit was basically just compiling the footage and the order as shot but experimenting along the way. The finished file is below and some explanations as to my thinking in the key editing areas. Some areas went well, some did not and some came close. Editing is obviously going to be important for telling the narrative of the piece and creating an interesting audience experience and flow and will need more consideration.
The boys edits of them as themselves and their own take on their relationships went fairly well. The most successful of which were the ones where they were cut to look like they were shot live and interacted with each other and the cross over and sense of friendship, fun and sibling bonding and relationships shone through.
The edits where they were presented as animations voicing the words of their parents in my opinion was less successful. It involved editing an image drawn in photoshop and of 4 basic frames, one of head with mouth closed and then three with mouth from slightly open to open. These were then edited to animate to the voice track. The colour of these was interesting and the idea did make some sense appearing as a enhanced version of their kids by the parents who spend the most time worrying about them all and how their personalities and life skills are progressing. However I am not 100% convinced and it is really jarring with the main footage. The same goes for the parents sound on these which is very flat and un-animated and needs a greater more approachable dose of personality next time possibly.
The edits presenting the psychologists were supposed to be cold and clinical and almost to be the foil for the boys actual personalities where the boys counteract their findings. The idea being that you cannot easily pigeon hole people according to studies and one size does not fill all and people confound, stretch and twist established ideas personality and identity rising above these. I played around with making them B/W playing with the contrast, B/W and pixelated to make them more blocky to represent this. I also experimented with sound trying to make this more detached deciding eventually to put a computer effect on the boys voices. The ideas are all rooting in the intentions to make the psychologists sections more detached but possibly was a little heavy handed and OTT for the audience and like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut with much more subtlety needed in future attempts.
Transitions between the comments and talking heads were tricky and to be honest I wimped out with a simple cut to black. I did try messing around with fades to black, dissolves and the such but I likes the abrasiveness of the cut to black and then the next set of comments surprising the audience. The jury is still out on transitions though and this needs further investigation and experiment.
The test shoot was more complicated than expected due to working with children (even if they are my own) and the creating of a set in my own front room. There were many elements that went better than expected and some that will dictate more time and resources
NOTES ON TEST SHOOT
The script/Interview questions. The aim was threefold. Firstly it was to get their personal impressions and pecking order and character traits and personalities of being a sibling. Secondly it was to get them to voice psychologists findings of the same thing and finally the view of parents.
The questions to the boys were.
Who is the oldest?
Who is the fastest?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
The psychologists views of siblings and pecking order leading to personality traits was from researching the subject and common established theories. These were read out loud by the boys each saying the one related to their sibling birth order.
The first born child is reliable
The second born child is a peacemaker
The youngest child is fun loving
The parents views on the same areas were were generated from discussions with my wife. We recorded just the audio for this as I plan to use animated figures to represent the boys as images for this. The audio recorded used the boys christian names and also we recorded the audio together in tandem to see how this affect would work as being the parents we discuss them a lot and generally view them in the same way.
Isaac is loving
Jacob is cheeky
Noah is a perfectionist
Location and MES was OK I used a green backdrop (curtain) and decided to expose the boys for the camera both metaphorically with the questions and physically by having naked torsos. This kept all of the attention and focus firmly on them throughout by not having any other diversions to look at. Issues were the fact that the set was not big enough to film them all at the same time.
Single camera shoot had to be used for the tests due to resources but the eventual aim is to do a 3 camera studio shoot possibly at the university or college. Due to this being a one camera shoot to get the interaction between boys I had to get them in their positions left, centre and right but film them one at a time putting the other boys out of shot in the right positions around them. It worked OK for a test shoot but I feel more natural interaction will be possible with a 3 camera set up recording "as live" so to speak. The edit will tell if this "staged" interaction between the boys works.
Cinematography was a static centred loose MCU a really traditional documentary shot. However with the nakedness of the boys it takes on a whole new perspective. I also allowed the boys to break the 4th wall and directly address the audience a general no-go for interviewees on a documentary. Through this the shots are very subversive but subtly plays on documentary styles, codes and conventions.
Sound was a basic microphone set up but positioned out of view. I did consider putting the microphone in shot and did a test but it was distracting from the main subjects so it was left out of shot.
The lighting was traditional documentary 3 point lighting. Used a 300W light as high key light also spilling on the background creating a strong light source but casting no background shadow and creating nice shading to add depth to the boys faces. A house lamp for a fill and an angle poise desk lamp for a back light to draw the subject out from the background. Worked to some degree but a more professional TV studio lighting set up and greater attention to detail will be needed for the main shoot.
The subjects were OK but the boredom threshold was low and it was easier working with each one individually as staging the three of them interacting with all of them in the same room was tricky. Again a proper 3 camera TV studio shoot would make this quicker and more natural. Costs incurred were a lego mini-figure each as payment for their services!
I have been putting off watching The Possibilities are Endless as I have done a lot of other texts that I have been inspired by preferring to have by slightly foggy memories of them so as not to be too influenced. However I did watch the documentary again today to re-visit the techniques it employs and the mood, tone, and highly emotive atmosphere it manages to create to remind myself and see if I can use these or put a spin on them for my own work.
The film is a fusion of high art and delicate storytelling about the rehabilitation of Scottish singer Edwyn Collins after a life threatening stroke. It is hugely creative and innovative aurally and visually as well as being inspirational, never taking the obvious tabloid documentary route. There are no standard talking head interviews and Edwyn’s voiceover is collaged from a huge wealth of audio recordings made at all stages of his recovery from very stuttery beginnings to more regular speech.
Watching the film again inspired me to do some further research into it. Film critic Dave Voight summed the film up thus “rather than craft a film of talking head confessionals and moments in the hospital, we get a mostly faceless voiceover set to some stunning imagery and unique archival footage designed to illustrate mindset of someone trying to find their way back to a normal existence.” Edward Lovelace one of the directors commented in an interview “we figured if we could get Edwyn’s voice to narrative a story about his life, then we could just create our visual tapestry.”
I was lucky enough to meet Edwyn Collins and his wife Grace after a festival that was screening a film of mine as well as theirs. Meeting in bar over a few too many beers I asked about why they chose Hall and Lovelace to tell their story when plenty of other filmmakers also wanted to tell Edwin’s story Edwin answered “because they wanted to make a piece of film art first and a documentary second”.
The film is gorgeous to look at and incredibly brave as we do not see anything really resembling traditional documentary until 20 minutes in. The first 20 minutes is a collage of image and soundscapes of inside Edwyn's head reimagining the massive stroke he went through. The images throughout paint a picture in an often very avant garde manner of the themes of the story. there is no talking head but Edwyns voice and that of his wife Grace areour guides throughout. The symbolism of the images, place, rememberances, locations is ever present. An element that works surprisingly well are the key scenes re-enacted by Edwyns son and an actress of Edwyn and his wife getting together. Rather than do re-creations of the late 70's though they are shot in contemporary settings and seem to have even more impact and less sentimentality as a result.
However the film is absolutely not style over substance. Edwyns story and struggle, amazing relationship with his wife are captivating and tenderly dealt with throughout. The narrative and character shine through but not conventionally and are never tabloidesque or mawkish. There are loads of styles, techniques and elements to take from the film that can be utilised for my own "Poetic Love" documentary with my grandmother especially the lack of talking head and the clever and emotive use of image and sound as well as the poetic documentary style.
A very interesting and influential approach to the study of documentary that I shall be using in my own work is Nichols’ “The Documentary Modes of Representation”. In this he identified five different modes (or types) of documentary. He created a way of organising documentaries into catagories similar to film genres. Unlike genres though these modes, Expository, Observational, Participatory, Reflexive, Performative and Poetic, were defined with reference to documentary techniques rather than subject matter like their feature film counterparts.
Taking these modes as a starting point and exploring all the areas that Nichols devised in more detail has helped me to define the boundaries of traditional documentary techniques. Whilst not the definitive tool it has helped me to understand styles, techniques and approaches and consider how to manipulate, stretch and possibly subvert them. Much as modern chefs are now creating “deconstructed” dishes such as reducing a cheesecake to its core elements and playfully distorting subverting and disrupting them I am looking to apply this same practice to my documentary work. All of these areas interest me and I can "borrow and be playful or even possibly subvert codes and conventions from all of them. The four below are areas that I have either worked in before or are the areas that do not interest me as much in my "creative treatment of actuality" as penned by Grierson. The two areas that I am most interested in are the stylistic elements of Performative and most especially Poetic documentary and I will explore these in their own posts. However below is a skinny on the other four "modes" of documentary and why they are not areas that interest me as much as the two pointed out.
Expository documentaries are the most common and familiar to audiences and are primarily made for TV. The techniques often employed include a voiceover narration, commenting on the images on screen and explaining them to a direct address to the audience. They can also use a lot of formal talking head interviews alongside general views of what is being communicated. Generally they develop and construct an argument and are not objective. Typical examples would be biopics and nature documentaries. These are really atypical documentaries that audiences are familiar with and due to this some of the techniques employed by them could easily be subverted to create new meanings.
Observational documentaries are also sometimes referred to as “fly on the wall” or “cinema veritie” and they attempt to represent the world as it is and capture a slice of life and with minimal awareness of the filmmaker. It does this through techniques such as long takes, hand held camera and no use of voice over and music. A film such as Etre Et Avoir and live Big brother is a good examples of this. Observational documentaries are often thought of being the closest you can get to truthful representation. Although I do not want to create observational documentaries their stylistics, codes and conventions could be useful in creating a "version" of the truth as audiences tend to trust this mode and its camera techniques are often mimic'ed in feature films to create a reality to the subject matter.
Participatory (interactive) documentaries are directly opposed to the observational style as the filmmaker is usually the central character of the film. They make it explicit that the film is their point of view and highly subjective and common techniques include voiceovers (with pronounced use of “I”) hand-held camera and informal interviews. These films saw something of a renaissance of cinema documentaries finding an audience in the early 2000’s of finding a through the work of Directors such as Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock. I in no way want to be the centre of the documentaries that I am making preferring to be puling the strings from behind the scenes however my work will borrow from the subjectivity that this mode allows.
Reflexive documentaries have some similar codes and conventions to the participatory in that they sometimes feature the documentarian or interviewer either on screen or off. However they also show the struggle and nuts and bolts of the film-making process. They are have a post-modern feel to them examining the nature of the construction process, the creation of the narrative and the truth. The audience and their journey is paramount and the questioning of our assumptions and expectations of the subject of the film. A majority of the work of Nick Broomfield follows this mode with the often problematic journey to the creation of the documentary behind the scenes often the narrative spine and the subject the content of the films. Whilst not wanting to work in this mode the philosophy behind the making of Performative documentaries and the creation of narrative and truth are areas within it that really interest me.
Returning to the idea of documentary modes being similar to film genres caution must be made and I must make sure there must be a fluidity of approach to strict definitions as illustrated by the cross-overs in the documentary modes mentioned above and I feel confident in using elements from all of these to create my own language of film. To borrow from some genre thinking fro Steve Neale, genres are instances of “repetition but difference”. David Buckingham states “genre is not… Simply “given” by the culture: Rather it is a constant process of negotiation and change”. So I am looking to use these modes and their stylistics codes and conventions to guide me not as rigid paradigms.
Whilst I intend to use stylistics, techniques, codes and conventions from all of Nichols aforementioned 6 modes of documentary the two that interest me most are the Poetic and Performative modes. They have the greatest scope for creativity and manipulation of sound and image and will get me closest to my aim of creating exciting works fusing documentary with fiction and avant garde.
POETIC DOCUMENTARY MODE
From all of the documentary modes poetic documentaries are the area of most interest to me and my work. To use Nichols’ 2001 own description these emphasise “ visual associations, tonal and rhythmic qualities, descriptive passages”. He also added the poetic mode “moves away from the ‘objective’ reality of a given situation or people, to grasp at an “inner truth” that can only be grasped by poetical manipulation”.
In other words, the audience are shown an abstract, subjective, representation of reality or “inner truth” achieved through techniques such as accenuated visuals and a narrative organised to fit the mood of the documentarian rather than the linear, logical organisation of the majority of documentary films.
In this they share similarities with the more cinematic use of film language that some Performative documentaries use. As mentioned on my performative documentaries post this manipulation of editing, sound, cinematography and mise-en-scene as well as structure to create an emotive response to the content matter. This highly cinematic use of film language will allow me greater creativity and for my documentary work to draw on fiction and avant garde film techniques to create mood, tone and more emotional meaning to the audience.
A good early example is Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) on the Aryan athletes representing Nazi Germany at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Riefenstahl glorifies the athletic ability and aura of these athletes through exagerated low camera angles and slow motion editing. In addition to this, Riefenstahl manipulated the sound editing of the documentary so that the background music matched with the movements of the athletes. These obvious distortions of reality in fact had the intention to use the ‘documentary’ as a source of Nazi propaganda to fuel patriotism within Germany and therefore demonstrate how documentaries of the poetic mode present a biased, subjective reality.
PERFORMATIVE DOCUMENTARY MODE
Performative documentaries are defined in three main areas. The first of these can sometimes centre the film around an actual performance or can even be a performance by a character in a role. The second relates to a performance by the documentary-maker being the central focus of the film and drawing the audiences attention to the construction and the filmmaking process with all the trials and tribulations this involves. Questions are often raised by this type of documentary with the director being the “star” and auteur and a lot of the work of Nick Broomfield is a good example of this.
The area of performative documentary that I am most interested in however is the one that experiments with form film language itself. This is the manipulation of editing, sound, cinematography and mise-en-scene as well as structure to create a performance rather than just subservient to the subject matter. Loving cinema as I do this element of performative documentary excites me as often highly cinematic and uses all of the areas of film at the filmmakers disposal using style to create emotive meaning to the audience. This use of stylistics will be what I aim to use in my documentary with my Grandma. A good example of a performative documentary is Night Mail by Harry Watt and Basil Wright using music, recreated sets, poetry and cinematic and atmospheric visuals to create a piece of good propaganda about society pulling together for a greater good and national pride. The edges of this however blur delightfully with the poetic documentary which is my main area of interest.
The Siblings Idea is the one that I am currently pursuing putting the 3 stages of love documentary on a back burner a little. there are lots of ideas I am currently considering for this that are firming up so here are the current key points I am debating and will to be looking into further and exploring.
INTENT AND PURPOSE
I am aiming to be playful with the notion of identity and pigeon holing. Taking Adlers psychological research and findings into Siblings and his identification of personalities and traits for the eldest, middle and youngest siblings I am going to use my 3 sons to explore the truth and fiction in this. The aim is to get across the point of nature AND nurture and that simple classifications do not suit the individual and are a very blunt tool. I will aim to do this by interviewing my sons, myself and my wife, and possibly other people who know them well and juxtaposing them alongside the opinions of them by the field of Psychology. It will obvious prove some of this but also disprove a lot I expect also.
DOCUMENTARY STYLE
Be playful and subversive with documentary forms and conventions.
Hybrid between documentary and installation. Factual in gallery?
Inform, Educate & ENTERTAIN.
5 minute piece aimed at galleries as an installation. No longer to keep attention.
EDITING & POST PRODUCTION
Consider transitions between contributors. Cuts, fades, dissolves etc.
Use of archive footage alongside staged IV's?
Use of GV footage to show insight into tpics boys are discussing?
uUse of titles to clarify topics & differentiate sections?
Use of on-screen graphics to emphasise points.
Use of SFX to distort and manipulate representations of boys. Pixelate, computerise, B/W etc.
CINEMATOGRAPHY/VISUALS
Mix of shots of the boys giving their comments
Very atypical MCU shot sizes used in doco but subveted. Break 4th wall.
Use of animation to re-craete boys images to add interest and create different representations.
SOUND
Music for mood to set the tone of contributors or not?
Boys recorded sound on location.
ADR lip synch to boys from other contributors
Effects on the voice to change the mood and tone. make psychologists statements cold?
Real contributors (teachers) or actors?
MISE-EN-SCENE
Blank studio environment? easy to control & light but lacks atmosphere.
Shoot in situation. Psychologits office, classroom for teachers etc?
Green screen the above to create a an artificial representation.
Boys naked torsos. Will show physicality and nakedness in front of camera, bearing souls.
Boys dressed using in colour coding and personality. Help identification for audience too.
Costumes for the boys when voiced by others. Shirt & tie for psychologists etc?
Lighting. 3 point high key standard of harsher more atmospheric?
I am definite that there will be three screens used as part of the installation but as of yet unsure on their form so here are my ideas and pro's and cons of each. I want the talking heads on the three screens to interact and cast looks to one another or even speak over each other. The whole project as well as dealing with the theme of siblings, labels and unconformity is also being playful with the idea of the "traditional" documentary "talking head" stylistic. I want to take this and turn it on its head (pardon the pun) a little so the talking head looks conventional but all will not be as it seems...
Sculptural Figures with Screen "Heads"?
I like this idea as it will mean the 3 sculptures and the video elements will take on a human type form. My boys are obsessed with their tablets so taking these and using them to represent their talking heads on a modified child mannequin could be particularly relevant. I love the sculptural nature of the installations of Nam June Paik and the way he integrates the screens into interesting and clever form. As far as clothing or unclothing the figures I do like the fact that it would give them personality especially if I dressed the boys in their own clothes and also a certain presence in the space. However I do like the androgynous look of the mannequins and the way it dehumanises the heads that may work well with some of the other voices they will be representing. I also like the fact that they will not have to be screened in a darkened gallery only. If iPads or something similar were used as the screens the installation could be put pretty much anywhere. I think it could be interesting and fun to screen the installation in corridors of other public places to surprise and to find different audiences. However the stylising of the boys form as figures could possibly lack the impact of using large screens and just talking heads.
Large screens and projection
I like the power and impact that this presentation style may bring and the impact of 3 large screens for small child faces that are often overlooked and not taken seriously. The scale can make the message and aesthetic of the installation more powerful. I envisage there being nothing in the dark space except the three large screens so they will capture the viewers full attention and this is where my current thinking lies. I want the impact of the three talking heads (and possibly other images) on a large scale to dominate the space so the onlookers cannot escape the force of whatever they are saying. This feels less gimmicky and more honest and a stronger representation of the subverting of documentary style as it keeps more of the documentary talking head aesthetic but is playful with it's form whilst retaining some of the familiarity of it.
Positioning of the installation
This will have to relate to how the installation is shot but as mentioned earlier I do want the three screens/models with screens to interact, casting looks to each other and interacting to what the others are saying. The three screens in a row could work, formed as three sides to a set with the viewer being "the fourth wall" or even slightly off set and this will need some experimentation to get the best balance of screens and viewer experience.
Many of the works I have taken inspiration from have also been playful with the notion of documentary being purely a factual representation of the “truth”. The Collins dictionary definition of a documentary is “a factual film or television programme about an event, person, etc, presenting the facts with little or no fiction”. When dealing with the notions of factual and truth in cinema it is a huge can of worms and at the very centre of debate in documentary. It has been present from the inception of documentary and Robert Flahertys Nanook of the North’s (1922) staging scenes in through to the same being levelled at Sir David Attenborough Frozen World (2007) zoo staged baby polar bear footage.
Representation of the truth in film is just that re-presentation of what is there. Even observational “cinema veritie” documentary modes are not 100% truthful. Do or can people act naturally whilst aware of the scrutiny of a film crew and the potential audience for the text. The moment a shot is framed, and edit is made then a decision has been made and the subject is being re-presented to the audience by the cameraman, editor or ultimately the filmmaker. Semiotics and the meanings to individual audience members of the representation will differ. The intended representation may create with the audience preferred dominant reading, professional, negotiated or oppositional readings in what Stuart Hall termed reception theory. The notion of the truth and distortion of it can be a good or a bad thing obviously. The pro Nazi propaganda of the work of Leni Riefenstahl such as Olympia (1938) and Triumph of the Will (1935) are the most obvious examples. However propaganda is not always a negative and such works as Night Mail (1932) promoting society and co-operation and more recently the campaigning work against the global domination and the effect on societies health of McDonalds in Morgan Spurlocks’ Super Size Me (2004).
I am really interested in this notion of "the truth" in documentary and I want to see how the fact and fiction, subjectivity and objectivity can be treated individually or as interesting bedfellows. Is bias necessarily a bad thing? Can the notion of "truth" be subverted to create new meanings? Acclaimed documentarian John Grierson considered to be the father of British documentary film, (who many believed coined the term “documentary” in 1926) faced criticism for his definition of documentary film, that ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ was somehow oxymoronic but I love this idea of taking actuality and being creative with it to create meaning. So just how far can a factual film-maker go when creating representations of actual characters, places and events before the piece and still call the film a documentary?
As my siblings video installation piece develops I have drawn a lot of inspiration from the formal triptych and quadtych work of Bill Viola especially Martyrs (2014) and Nantes (1992) that in his own words creates “total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound.” (Bill Viola, 2015). His scenes invoke both spiritual and artistic traditions and often deal with life, death and consciousness. I am not quite working within these areas but his work affords its themes and great gravitas and I like the idea of this in my work.
The use of multiple screens really interests me as a way of slipping the confines of one screen story telling and narrative that TV and cinema exhibition restrict me to. I love the very formal often studio shot creation of his work and the very high often cinematic production values. The starkness of the mise-en-scene and sets which are minimal and therefore emphasise only the elements that Viola wants the audience to concern themselves with. The use of lighting and costume/clothing also do not detract from the images or narratives.
Viola's use of sound in his works is also interesting and this is another area I shall be investigating more in my own work. Sometimes used to startle sometimes just to create mood and tone. The works do not involve much editing if any at all and let the images play out and again this is a techniques I may exploit.
The inter-relationships between the images also has greatly inspired me but I feel my work could have more interplay between the images and the screens rather than being independent could be more interdependent on each other and interlinked and respond to each other more in my work. Being brothers this is what the three subjects are and more can be made of this.
The Rachel Rose exhibition Palisades was the first UK show by the New York based American installation artist and was in the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London. Rachel Rose who is only 31 is fast making a name for herself on the installation art scene winning the 2015 Frieze Artists Award. The exhibition comprised of three works interwoven together in the space Palisades (2014), A Minute Ago (2014) and in the walk around space around the two interior gallery/exhibition spaces a purpose built sound installation using the sound from Palisades. The effect was an immersive environment of light, sound and colour.
The titular pieceof the exhibition Palisades (2014) was a wonderful blurring of time and place, vision and audio and set up on one screen in it's own space. Set in various time zones Rose uses tromp-loeil editing techniques to create almost optical illusions to link together a present day character in the Palisades Interstate Park in New York on the banks of the Hudson to different moments in the sites history. Through the juxtaposition and collision of apparently unrelated events Rose links the present day to historic battles in the US Revolutionary War to create a path of historical connectivity, morality, lessons and the circular repetition of history. The piece segues from current footage of the girl in the park creating ghosts of the past events from old paintings moving from extreme close ups of the woven fabric of her jumper to an almost graphic match edit of the pattern of an old etching pulling back to reveal a famous ship battle in the Hudson. The same is done with images of a deer in a painting being shot, cutting to an almost internal view of it happening blood red and then dissolving into a bright orange/red plastic bag bringing us back through a zoom out into present day Palisades. The piece feature no real cuts as the transitions between shots inter fold and dissolve through to one another further distorting not only the images but also the past and present.
The sound is also an exercise in building narrative and story. A sigh sound bridges past and present, shouts, screams and gunfire and cannons bring moving images of old paintings to life. Most strikingly a subverted version of Bang Bang (My baby shot me down) by Nancy Sinatra weaves to gather the past and present. I use of sound was amazing and sparse and focussed rather than an onslaught. It drew on a variety of effects from atmosphere, voices, ambience, music, library and possibly foley to build and create meaning. Meryl Streep's voice whispering "I am the voice of dead people" flows into a static which crackle which then in turn changes into historical gunfire. Without a shadow of a doubt the audio mix was as important as the visuals and the glue that at times held everything together. The outside of the gallery wrap-around walkway further enhanced the importance of this using a newly imagined mix soundscape from Palisades and A Minute Ago on a multitude of speakers so the sound literally moved, swallowed, chased, haunted and followed you as you went around the exterior walkway.
Palisades was hugely inspiring and vindicated the use of multiple layers of sound and how important it could be in my own work. It complemented the visuals but also added a whole new depth and layer of understanding sometimes parallel to the images but sometimes contrapuntal. Although only a one screen installation the piece intertwined excellently the wast array of topics and time zones, narratives and character. The piece zig zags about in history but still with a narrative thread of sorts veering from everyday life to the epic sweep of history. The way it did this was hugely inspiring and demonstrated that a narrative could be multi fractured and yet still coherent.
A Minute Ago (2014) was the companion piece to Palisades in the exhibition and is a one screen installation in it's own space. It starts with a happy scene with people enjoying a day on a Siberian beach that suddenly turns into a nightmare as in a matter of seconds an apocalyptic hailstorm batters the people some to a state of severe injury and fighters the rest as they seek shelter wherever possible. It is shot like a home movie and is certainly found archive footage and is subtitled. From voices stating "So wonderful" the shouts of the people change quickly and drastically to cries of"Get to cover", "Oh shit", "It does not happen", "Hoooly shit" and "If we die know I love you". Pink Floyds "Echoes" plays subtly in the background but more haunting than usual apparently recorded being played in an empty amphitheatre in Pompeii, obviously itself the scene of natural devastation. The message is clear and the visuals biblical as the hailstorm erupts at the location and we are forced to see our relationship to nature, our weakness at the mercy of it and question how volatile this order is.
The beach section of the film is then suddenly replaced by cityscapes of glass buildings before settling on scenes of Architect Philip Johnson's "Glass House". At the onset of these the horrific sound from the beach footage accompanies them and their plashed surfaces and camera moves provide an interesting correlation. The images represent out taming of nature and sheltering ourselves from it yet due to the material (glass) we are still connected to it the outside in an interesting juxtaposition. Rose rotoscopes old VHS footage of Johnson himself a blurred mumbling figure with footage shot herself of the Glasshouse itself as he guides us around his creation. Syncopated Jazz drumming links cuts to the beat as we see other architectural images destroyed villages, stately homes linking again to our attempts to shelter us from nature. In the end the Glass house is fractured using motion graphics and effects shattering in to a million pieces piece by piece perhaps again representing our fragility in the natural world.
To me the piece raised some fascinating and primeval issues and themes just as applicable today as in the beginning of time. Fear of impending catastrophe, ecological issues (global warming) and the advancement of technology trying to harness and answer both of these. Like Palisades Rose has created questions and debate by her combination and choice of images but perhaps this time the message is less opaque and more clunky and transparent and for this reason I feel Palisades is the more accomplished piece. However once again the use of sound is integral to the piece and is something I wish to incorporate into my own work. It also demonstrates the possibility of what can be achieved on a one screen installation which is something I had dismissed possibly from my own work and a desire to create multi-screen pieces. If the content is a vast deep tapestry and collage of intertwined ideas, footage and layers of sound the work can be just as powerful. As a footnote it was interesting to see that there was an event linked to the exhibition with Rachel Rose in conversation with a hero of mine Walter Murch. Murch is primarily known as a film editor having worked extensively with Lucas, Copolla and Minguella to name but a few. He is also credited with inventing the term "Sound design" in films with his amazing work on "Apocalypse Now" and it interesting to me that the sound work of Rachel Rose in her installations bears striking similarities.
Chantal Akerman "Now" was an exhibition of Akermans' installation work displayed at the very interesting Ambika P3 gallery in the bowels of the University of Westminster, London. It was initiated as simply a collection of her work but following her death on the 5th October 2015 aged only 65 it forms a really interesting retrospective of her installation work. Belgian Akerman did not only work in this area however and was a successful fictional and factual filmmaker, artist and writer as well as being a professor at the city college of New York. She was also widely travelled making a variety of films about different issues and concerns across the globe. Jonathan Romney in his obituary piece in the Guardian sums her up thus. "The marginal position she sometimes occupied in the film world had much to do with her eclectic practice, which made it hard to assign her a neat "auteur" identity. Nevertheless, from early in her career, Akerman attained a somewhat legendary status among cinephiles as a cinematic radical, a formal innovator and a pioneer of modern feminist cinema". The titular and centrepiece of the exhibition is Akerman's final gallery work NOW (2015). During her travels in the Middle set Akerman collected images from desert regions specifically those that had been violently contested. The scene channel video projection with surround sound presents these often desolate and deserted constantly moving landscape images. To accompany this there is an all encompassing soundtrack of a violent war-zone blasted at the you from all angles with surround sound creating a weird dichotomy of image and soundscape. The movement creates a feeling you want to escape and rush away but the soundtrack and it's onslaught of bombs, gunfire and disturbed cries of fear and pain will not let you. However it is what we do not see that makes the piece so memorable. Allowing the viewer to project their own horrific images of the atrocities of war onto the calm but ever changing barren landscapes Akerman gives us as a canvas for our imaginations to fill. The use of sound is fantastic especially its surround sound coming at you from all angles and creating a 3D soundscape drawing your attention this way then that, and is an idea I would love to explore myself. The staging of the installation is also strong 5 large screens disappearing away from the viewer and floating from the ceiling. The are projected onto slightly opaque perspex in an obviously darkened room and the overall appearance is hugely impressive. You can even walk around a little amongst them to fully immerse yourself in the installation which again is an idea I find intoxicating. The whole piece is a powerful assault on the senses whilst at the same time allowing room for introspection on the horrors and nature of war before, during and after.
In the Mirror(1971) is a 16mm video transfer is a scene created as in installation form Akermans 1971 film "L'enfant aims - ou je joue a eyre use femme mariee". A woman stands mostly naked before a mirror talking to herself and honestly appraising her body of it's better and weaker aspects. One long MLS the viewer is a voyeur of the main characters own voyeur as she inspects her body. It is an awkward view as the audience trespasses on an intimate and frank moment the character is having with herself. Shot in B/W it is an interesting cross over of when can a scene from a fiction film be gallery based art? It is an arena I am interested in the blurring of art, fiction and factual.
A Voice in the Desert (2002) is a single channel video projection with sound. The installation is a sort of documentary of a screening of a feature film she made portraying life on both sides of the US/Mexican border about what a difference a line on a map makes. Taking this idea one step further Akerman then arranged for a screening of a section of this film actually ON the US/Mexican border constructing a double sided screen, mirroring the different standpoints. I love the idea of this and the clever choice of the location that a piece is screened having a huge symbolic resonance with the actual piece of work itself.
Maniac Summer (2009) and Maniac Shadows (2013) both were multi projection four channel projection installations and whilst clever in set up and technique both left me a not as affected as her other work. Maniac Summer was centred around a shot of Akerman's Paris flat apartment with an often unattended camera observing not just the apartment but the happenings outside her huge window. She sometimes potters around taking calls and a counter stamps the time of the recording. Smaller projections show the happenings at a park children playing, images artificially zoomed in on, with a second screen and often distorted, B/W or reversed. The film plays with the structure of time and place, showing traces, remnants and shadows and is interesting for this if not the content and presentation of it. Maniac Shadows contrasts a variety of images forcing the viewer to create and impose links. Obama's election party, busy exteriors of life, often obscured views of a NY apartment and toilet, shadows and the artist finding refuge behind her bed. 96 still images from the from the moving images are displayed creating a stark coldness to the piece. Curiosity is ignited, links are forged and broken between the images and confusion and anxiety is left in between all of the interwoven media. The idea of the collision of images and the multitude of these pieces interests me here but I did not enjoy the huge ambiguity of the pieces. The multi screen projections of varying sizes was interesting and playful though and the spaces that they were shown in were all enveloping to the viewer. Both of these ideas I want feel are worth further examination and development in my own practice.
D'est: au bord de la fiction (1995) (From the East: Bordering on fiction) was a fascinating installation. Using scenes from her film D'est as the raw materials 24 screens banks of monitors in groups of 3 represent these unstructured series of scenes as an organic narrative. The viewer walks around these scenes creating their own narrative based on their own navigation of the piece. The original film D'est explored eastern bloc countries before the fall of communism reflecting a condition of expectation and changlessness. The installation playfully contradicts this as it is ever changing and carries no expectations as to what can happen next. The work also separates the comfort and sense of community (one complete film) with lots of individual scenes representing the individual and subjective.
The staging of the installation with 24 separate screens early captures all of the above with an ever changing narrative and structure as characters, locations, sounds and stories all collide to create a personal reading. The way the music and sound from one screen spills over into a scene next door can link them, be parallel or be contrapuntal or all of these at the same time creating a new meaning or viewpoint and experience for the viewer. I found the installation amazing and the very multi-viewpoint of a text creating a new reading for every viewer something to which I aspire.
During a trip to London I made sure I visited the Bill Viola "Martyrs" (2014) installation at St Paul's cathedral. Bill Viola is a world renowned and critically acclaimed installation artist and viewed and widely acknowledged as one of the leading artist currently working in the field.The piece is a Polyptych screened on four HD vertical plasma screens with each screen representing a character as a martyr undergoing martyrdom from one of the four elements earth, air, fire or water.
The work has no sound but over seven and a quarter mins shows the characters submitted to one of the elements. The footage in "earth" sees the male character consumed by a pile of earth pinned to the floor then gradually released/freed as the earth comes off in reversed footage. The female character in "air" sees her trussed up by her hands and feet increasingly buffeted by wind as she is helpless against it. "Fire" sees an seated elderly male character gradually consumed by fire falling from above until completely ablaze. Finally "water" sees a (Jesus inspired) character trussed by the feet lifted upside down by his feet into a reverse crucifix to undergo a torrent of water.
The piece is haunting, especially in the quiet surroundings of it's setting in St Paul's almost enhanced by the lack of sound which draws the full attention to the visuals. They are studio shot certainly with some SFX added in post production but (especially fire) but subtly done. The images are stark from the black (studio) location to the characters and their simple clothing and the miss-en-scene does not detract from the on screen activity. The lighting is all focussed on the characters and the elements they are doing battle with. The four screens interplay well building and climaxing at a similar time but the eye is always drawn to one screen more than the three others as the action in them changes. I loved the use of four screens and their interaction, the playing with the generally landscape nature to film and TV and the cinematic quality of the installation. It is incredibly powerful and thought provoking and Viola controls the audience with the pace and style. No edits or sound draw the audiences full attention to the potency of the image on screen that are very relatable to all. Moving forward with my own work the elements I am drawn to are the clarity of the message as well as the cinematic starkness. I do feel that I will need to embrace sound and possibly editing more though.
In spite of it's setting Martyrs speaks to a wider spirituality than the Catholicism of St Paul's and deals with themes of just what ideals and causes would you be prepared to defend and what sacrifices could and would you endure to defend these and to make you a martyr.
In the words of Bill Viola himself "The Greek word for martyr originally means "witness". In today's world, the mass media turns us all into witnesses to the suffering of others. the martyrs' past lives of action can help them illuminate our modern lives of inaction. They also exemplify the human capacity to bear pain, hardship and even death in order to remain faithful to their values, beliefs and principles. This piece represents the ideas of action, fortitude, perseverance, endurance and sacrifice".
Jon Rafman (1981) is a Canadian artist and filmmaker based in Montreal whose work examines the effects of contemporary technology, particularly on interpersonal relationships.
His exhibition at the Zabludowicz gallery left me a little confused as thematically it was a little all over the show and what some critics have dubbed "vomit art". Initially it seemed to me to be the worst of video installation art and trying too hard and too clumsily making a point. The technology was interesting and the user experience was too though so there were some points to be gleaned from the exhibition but subtle it was not!
On entering you are invited to kick-off your shoes shoes and sink into a giant ball pit and watch Manga imagery and what can only be described as animal costume bondage on a central screen. The user experience was fun and interesting but it all seemed a little gimmicky and there was no discernible correlation between the images and the viewing experience watching the video play out overhead. Manga children and a childlike ball pool but little else.
Another weird experience was shutting youself in a cupboard and watch the aftermaths of first person shooter video games with a philosophical voice over. Again the experience was stronger than the actual video work itself but the point of watching it in a cupboard was again lost on me. Hide and seek, children hiding away or hiding themselves away immersed in a game?
There were also many other installations along differing themes. Tight body hugging chairs while you are bombarded with varied voyeuristic images some of which are more like a series of you've been framed clips embarrassing the subjects. A childs bedroom is re-created and a made by kids sci-fi video with dubious special effects is screened. In both of these the setting up experience of watching the work is once again a stronger and more interesting element than the actual moving image work itself.
The centrepoint of this show is a maze filled with sculptures. You put on a (virtual reality) headset before being taken on a voyage. It combines heights and playing with space and is freeing and surreal, yet also a disconcerting experience and the stongest piece in the exhibition. It does make you question whether this technology will become increasingly prevalent as artists seek to make video art more interactive.
Jon Rafmans video work itself left me a little cold and was often and assortment of what looked like archive and sources clips, manga, news, home footage that either made little point of made a clumsy point. However the setting up of the work was really interesting ball pools, tight restraining chairs, cupboards and even a mock up child bedroom were certainly food for thought. whilst these are not ideas. I may pursue directly his consideration and thought for the audience "experience" of viewing his work and the interactive immersive of these are certainly food for thought.
