muted light

Day through billowing plastic. Moving through drawings and cleaning, elaborating, finishing and fixing each as inspired - one at a time, as single images. My goal is to complete and document these series in the next month, feeling more or less finished with the 'statement' as such and very slowly drawing a boundary to define this body. Shifting to concerns of display, I will be building shelves for groupings of wood pieces, so that each may be displayed at a different height, from floor level to eye level.
Listening to specks of hail striking the windows.

found

this strangely complete discography on the Spiritual Achives blog.

Flock & Tumble - Screens and bodies

A large performance event, Flock & Tumble is scheduled for the first weekend in November at AudioCinema (226 Se Madison St in Portland). A large, empty warehouse, 12 sound-makers (performers), 4 channels of pre-recorded sound, 4 video projections of the dancers Linda Austin, Wooly Mammoth and others, with clothes by Diana Lang. At this point, I am working with 5 sections - an opening "tumble", three "flock" sections ("Flock", "Swarm" and "Torus") and a closing "tumble". Loosely speaking, (that is, as far as I know) a tumble consists of actions which are passed sequentially from one performer to another, while the flocks use rules of behavior taken from animals (birds, insects and fish) to create clusters of activity. The dancers perform only in screenal space - projected onto the walls.

What does it mean to dance on a screen? Why are the dancers in this piece separated from the activities in “real time”? Perhaps simply to create this space for “unreal time”. I have been interested in the possibility of simultaneous frames which “open up” the edges of actual space into alternate ones. With the emphasis on the plural. These are not spaces to lose the sense of the body (as in the typical cinematic experience of "suspension of disbelief” - though these videos will clearly draw on filmic inspirations. I have been noticing the movement of bodies in films which exist on (or across) the edges of “realism” - the carefully choreographed actions in Bresson’s prime output. The way sitting down, turning the head, placing a hand on a bench can be both completely normal and totally stylized. He achieved this hyper-awareness by filming many, many takes of the same seemingly unimportant movement. On the 40th take, the actor finally reaches an appropriate level of automatism. “Don’t we complete most of our actions in a kind of automatism?” he asks.

Another very different film has informed my thoughts - a Japanese yakuza flick called “Branded to Kill” which takes the stylized choreography of genre-specific conventions - the gunfight, the chase scene, the violent death - and twists them into dance. Falling back into a spinning office chair, the wounded man spins around not once but three times, calling attention to the falseness of the entire construct. Calling attention to the beauty of pure movement which fights against the story while furthering it. There’s something about this fighting and flowing which can exist together. Maybe we can call it “Suspension of belief”...

Bodies will be multiplied by four, though not mirrored. Staggered flashes. Where does the individual movement exist in this multiplicity? How does the body contribute to the larger pattern? How does the repetition of movement create sequential pattern? These are questions I leave to the dancers, as authorities on the subject. Perhaps it can spark a conversation. I would like that.

Music has been underway since December, though I have to imagine much of the final result. In combining live activity with recorded sound, I want these elements to coexist, sharing space. I imagine voice to be a primary tool of the performers, while the recorded compositions are "instrumental" for now (concrete and electronic sounds).

scatter logic

Brushing through a book of Barry Le Va in the library, his work resonated (not for the first time) as an idea of investigating drawing. I'm looking for a way of drawing across, on and with objects, materials. Becoming slightly more clear about how objects have presence. A few weeks ago I dreamed of tall flags or banners hanging from poles and touching the floor, a dark, ominous and somewhat awkward presence. I have been at the sewing machine trying to reconstruct that image in some way. Painting fabric with a mixture of graphite powder, water and acrylic medium results in a dense black surface which turns silver with rubbing or distress. It also results in black hands and fine graphite dust everywhere. Which is not terribly good for keeping all those other mostly white drawings clean.
I keep cutting across the flags and then re-sewing, shifting their angles. I want an unstable feeling, similar to the balanced plywood pieces. The idea of shifting like fractured sedimentary layers. All of these objects suggest a ground plane.
Lately in the studio I move between sanding and priming plywood, cutting and sewing fabric, and hectic clusters of graphite marks on paper. My creative attention is split about equally between drawing and composing, as I've been recording new sounds (springs, trombone, plucked strings, metal) and starting the first stages of new sound clusters. I've also been in a process of mourning the closing of the Portland Art Center's old town exhibition space, helping to write the history of that space and think about potential futures which could include flexible, project-based collaborations and activities. It's a tremendous loss of invested energy from everyone involved, and it seemed on the edge of real fruition. At the same time, not being weighed down by high rent opens up room for different and exciting modes...

chilly in the studio

but I'm warming up with some labor intensive drawings. Fela Kuti is the soundtrack of the week.

Summary but not summery

This Wednesday, the Portland Art Center's fund-raiser PDX Panels show opens (300 panels by 300 artists), along with It Takes a Village, a show of volunteer's work which I'll be in. This is the first showing of Plait, which will continue to expand and be reconfigured (image above).

Returning to the world of sound, it looks like I'll be making a multi-channel sound installation for Diapason Sound Gallery in 2008 and perhaps have the opportunity to work with a dance company in NYC. And I'm glad to say that Sonoris will release my new solo CD Flock & Tumble this Spring (most of which was used as a score for Circus Me Around by Linda Austin Dance last month).

The plastic on the studio windows is billowing, the rain is pouring, the kerosense heater is burning, the music is playing and I am drawing.

Questioning

Pondering a random stacking of pieces today, I recognized something that is close to my original mental image of these pieces. Meanwhile, there is a hesitant start on a drawing to be held in place by a large pieces of glass, behind the wood pieces. And a series of smaller graphite drawings which will be mounted on the wall behind tempered glass.

Framed or unframed, clusters or compositions... These days I am craving a clear voice in my head which would say "Stop now, go here, try this." Especially the "stop now". There are so many places to be charmed along the way, so many potential combinations. Lack of wall space complicates things a bit by crowding together different series. That's why we're going to take apart the loft in the studio and turn it into a large work surface. We haven't been sitting up there anyway... Though the sunsets over the West Hills from the 8th floor can be nice, it makes me depressed to view the constant stream of cars on the Interstate, slowly burning through the last of the oil.

Anyway, a recent tip on where to buy large sheets of used tempered glass suggests an opportunity to play with multiple clusterings/layerings. Questioning the form of these many bits which make up a whole, I conclude not to conclude - deferring the decision to adapt to a particular space.

A weekend in Gull Harbor, WA with Kelly offered the chance to reconnect with natural patterns - ferns, moss, shells, ripples in wood, mother-of-pearl. On the bookshelf of the B&B (where we were gifted a free room), a chance encounter with the book "A Pattern Language". There's something intriguing here, though I'm not sure yet what it is. The idea of a "living" city or "living" house, "living" courtyard, etc. is not so much different from a living painting. And certainly my interest in pattern has not abated...