making faces

playing with final cut pro,
presenting: the clone effect!

i'm sure the world is happier that there is only one of me.

digesting

i showed some concepts and ideas for work in Friday Critique and again in Grad Critique yesterday. there is some footage and i'm happy to talk about it, but i don't feel ready to share it online.

i am confident that there is something there, but it is taking shape slowly -
and while i enjoy the luxury of the slow process and diving deeper into the ideas, instead of just squeezing out a product for a deadline, i am becoming painfully conscious that there is a deadline, and i am expected to produce something like a finished product.
right now i'm leaning towards a compromise, to offer a sample piece that is not _the_ work but a version of it, yet more than just a draft.
i am learning a lot about a method of making work that feels fruitful.

the new media right now feels like skill building, something i will not be using in my own work for now, but still fun and informative, and opening possibilities for the future.

how to continue

i was very happy with the reception of the work at fall dance.
it feels like this part of the work is complete.

i am thinking of a live version, but not with projection or interactive sound scapes. i want interactivity but in a very basic form. if i were moving blindfolded and had volunteers from the audience speak commands, and take care that i don't bump into things.
this part of the work would fall in the genre of dance, in the wide meaning of the word.

i am thinking of the sensation of threat in the body, and how moving to study in the united states and trying to understand the reasons for the wars, has made me re-live childhood memories of cold war eastern europe and the constant fear of nuclear attacks.
i am trying to understand how it feels, to have unseen enemies on a foreign ground you never see.
do people live their everyday lives under a threat?
do they, like we did, feel personally, physically threatened?
touched by someone you don't see, creating a collective body of pain which requires action.....

now

new version of the video for fall dance.

changed the rhythm,

enjoying the low tech feeling and the accidental sounding sounds.

curious to see what happens, to hear what people have to say.

sk/in/visibility

this is the second version i made with a few changes

after the CAP mid term critique.

about the comments and how i want to continue:

i showed this to other people after the critique, but only in private situations, because i had become afraid of displaying the captive female body as an object of desire.

i especially asked for people to comment on that aspect, but only after they had seen it. no-one had looked at it from that angle. they saw terror, and they made connections to the cultural images that i had been citing, which the people in the class did not see or comment on. i was relieved to hear this work read as bringing the female body visible in the imagery of terror, where it has only been male bodies in the news, the female bodies absent and silent.

with encouragement from viewers i left out the question in the end, because they said that the question is already visible in the work. i hoped it would be. and i don't want to narrow it down to just that one question, words have such power over us sometimes.

about making changes:

1. i am going to re-shoot the feet in front of the box.

2. i do not want to show more kneading of the bread. i want it to be seen only once, maybe a millisecond longer than in this version, but no more.

3. i do not want to shoot the eating of the bread: the eating is part of the event, it is not to be looked at but to be participated in.

4. the making of the bread has to be shot and re-edited every time, because i want people to be eating the same bread that is in the video. this poses some limitations to where and when the work can be shown.

5. i would be grateful for more feedback and discussion about why you felt (if you felt) it was primarily an object of desire in the box. i have looked at this over and over and i do not agree. i am not sure that i want to change my imagery, but i need more discussion to make that choice.