Can leave the cave”
Here are some things that I’ve been watching, listening to, thinking about over the past week. One experience kind of led to another. At the end of the week, I felt like they all connected a bit. At least for me. Some Meta Synchronicity if you will.
Watching Sans Soleil was the first/opening experience this week. It felt a bit like a commentary on the making of “moving images”. Very experimental. I was quite struck by the sound. Felt sonic and haphazardly electric. It created a bodily reaction in me. Uncomfortable and strange. Click here if you want to watch the film 🙂
I’ve seen other clips/films that remind me of Sans Soleil. In ART 170 I remember doing a presentation on Basma Alsharif. Here are some of my notes from November 20, 2019:
Her work is characterized by montages of recordings and texts, unique incorporations of music, and apocalyptic documentary footage with no specified location or time.
me
One thing I would add to my notes now, looking back, is a recognition of the eroding memorialization of the moving image as a political commentary. I can see this being something that Sans Soleil was also trying to get at in its oscillation between the peoples of Japan and Africa characterized by two poles of “survival”. The images/people became distorted and pixelated at some points for both videos. I remember really enjoying her work/process back in 2019. Check out Home Movies Gaza! That one really struck me in its visceral sounds.
Sometimes I could see the “happiness” in the image. In fact, I think I saw it most of the time. But the music made some scenes ominous; as if something sinister was in the background/lurking just beneath the surface. It also felt trance-like. As if I was being hypnotized at times (I’ve realized much of Film is like this). The narration was my favorite part. It made me laugh out loud at some points. And sometimes sit in contemplation. Sometimes both at once.
Frankly, have you ever heard of anything stupider as they teach in film schools, not to look at the camera?
@0:7:27
Side note/experience: @ the 1:22:00 mark I was reminded of a video I had watched of Arcade Fire’s Black Wave/Bad Vibrations played with the “aerial dog fights” of WWII. The images feel so distant and I almost can’t believe they’re real footage. This was real. I also wonder if those soldiers in the planes felt disconnected from the reality of their situation. Maybe in hindsight, they saw things differently. In memoriam.
I think Sans Soleil’s commentary on war strikes me as trying to recover these lost gaps in time/memory. It is a wound that is beneath our conscious awareness. But ever-present. How can we reconcile our past, as humans? Is this even our past if we keep dragging this hurt toward the present? I’m not really sure I have an answer right now. I do think it has to do with the creative process, though.
11:20pm
I’m editing this jumble of a journal and stumbled on Chris Markers website. I don’t know why I didn’t look his site up sooner. His website is just so good! Daniel L Potter writes in
WOUNDED TIME
PERIODICALLY DUSTED NOTES ON SANS SOLEIL
:
One of the bases of this desire (of the theoretical/sensual) is the act of traversing, traveling, expanding the self through an immense and ongoing encounter with experience in the guise of material detail, which an exacting intelligence then goes over with the care of a painter. This travel is not metaphorical but practiced, and it involves a literal descent into the archive, of two types: the dust of the library, and the fragments of memory. Both are types of time-travel and trace the engravings of time, legible, half-legible, and illegible.
Daniel L Potter
I enjoy this “time-traveling” type of practice. I think this is something that I will continue to think about for my own project. How can my film be an exploration of history, memory, and narratives? What is it that I want to say? Sometimes I feel like my words get choked up. Like I have the idea of an idea but its quite formless. But when I start making, without even thinking, I can begin to see my idea forming.
I think that is how I will approach the deliverables/products of my project. I will just shoot every day. Even if its on a phone at the start. Just to keep to the momentum of this flow state. I’ve actually been in flow for much of the entire week, surprisingly. It’s a very calm state to be in.
Side note experience number 2: I was having a talk with my Mom about some personal matters. I was feeling a bit dejected about some past situations/memories that have been holding me back mentally and she wanted to lift my spirits so she told me about this speaker Daniel Habif:
and without your own vision, you don’t know where you’re going.”
He tells the morning talk show audience to follow these 2 steps:
1. Aceptar quien es/Accept who you are
2. Ser quien es/Be YOU
Daniel Habif
Of course, this is definitely easier said than done but he has some great explanations to this problem of comparison/envy/self-esteem issues.
Jason Silva has some things to say about this “Be Yourself, For Everyone Else is Taken” saying:
You find out who you are when you’re not there. When you’re not busy trying to be someone you find out who you are.
Jason Silva
The main experience to side experience number 2 is the podcast with Daniel and Jason talking through current times, existentialism, technology, dimensions of creativity, The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, Transhumanism, the metaphysics of cinema, and responses to human decadence. Its a long talk but its nice to hear someone in your native tongue talk about these subjects.
When love is your response, the question doesn’t matter.
Daniel Habif
I will end this journal entry tangent post by discussing “Sunblind” by Fleet Foxes. Their new album appeared in my Spotify suggestions as I’ve been a big fan of them since high school. They’ve gotten me through some tough times and this album is no different. The song is quite joyous in paying homage to artists that have passed away.
I began “Sunless” and ended up “Sunblind”. Learned a lot this week.
I’ll leave you with this funny video of the apartment cat Tapi (aka Tapioca) asking for pets. He’s been especially clingy this week. I told my roommates that October is a time when cats probably feel the veil of reality and the spirit realm thinning. He is a black cat after all.
