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Bedlam
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Filmography -
Biography -
Exhibitions -
Statements
BEDLAM
Prologue.
All this, believe me, is quite senseless.
Pure bloody Shambles. (I may be lying)
Nevertheless, more attractive than dubious certainty, senselessness, a
clumsy bow-legged clutter of viperous sounds, drives that which may possibly
distinguish homo sapiens from the dull, four-legged plodders which he eats,
at least until the plodders too, learn to rise up on their hind quarters,
and search the horizon, the sky, the Shambles for some speck of tenuous
meaning gleaned from the distance between two objects, and then exclaim, in
perfect Hindi, “that rock looks just like Madonna”, or “those stars form the
exact outline of a 1957 Studebaker Champion”. All the while, the Shambles
steadfastly remains the Shambles, as we passionately concoct it and tear it
apart to make strawberry quarks and DNA and co-polymer latex from primordial
bouillabaisse. If there is one thing we do incessantly well, then it is to
search for abstruse relationships in the Shambles. Large bodies collude in
agreement, chorusing in frightful unison, “We shall prevail”. Agreement
again about the fact that the rock does not look like Madonna, or any
Madonna, but rather like Queen Beatrix of Holland, as the Winter sun fell on
her left cheek, while she wistfully contemplated a sliver of rapidly aging
Gouda.
No, It was Edamer. Two slivers.
Ultimately, when we too return to the Shambles, when the 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics (you know, the one about entropy) collides with the
brilliantly ordered structure of DNA, we have the choice of three kinds of
Hell, the Hell of Total Sense, the Hell of Total Senselessness, and the
special, gruesome Hell, the contradictory, co-habitation of both of these,
and, if we delve, (and delve we will) into the mess, all that may remain at
the very bottom of the barrel, will be a squat singularity filled with
pointless monologues in a deaf and blind world (God, why did you not make it
dumb too?) in which perfect Hindi is and always will be, incomprehensible.
And the “intentions?” Newton’s clock ran down because it was clogged with
matted swathes of “intentions”, like the smelly stuff smugly nested in the
U-bend of a toilette drain; you know its there but you can’t see it. You
deduce its presence from the rising tide approaching the rim of that
porcelain world. “Ah! So there are intentions!” we exclaim perplexedly. But
it is hopeless to intend in the face of Shambles. And yet we do, causing our
own misery. It’s our own fault. I told you so. You might as well, for lack
of a cell phone, tap Morse on the bars of your cell window. Shakespeare did
nothing else.
The Age of Information was constituted by nothing more (or less) than
disparate squeaks and bleeps; all of them abandoned orphans searching for a
kind mother’s breast.
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1. Starting point for this work was a performance text for 5 performers, who
were to interact with various instruments on stage whilst reciting the text.
In other words, the first text only version was conceived exclusively as a
live stage performance. Later, I decided that the original text dialogue
should be recorded and that I would then translate the text associatively
into visual imagery. Parallel to this, the composer created a sound track
from collected material related to the meanings inherent in the text.
Finally there are three levels in this work: the spoken text, the sound
composition and the visual imagery, which were then synchronised together.
The original version is conceived for 5 synchronised projections on 5 large
screens set in a semi-circle in front of the viewers. This version is a
mono-screen version only.
2. Two media-aesthetic principles are inherent in this method of making
visual art: the use of (1) compositing and the use of (2) data bases. All
software related to the manipulation, creation and reconstruction of visual
material, is designed to function in the form of layers, which are then
composited. Even the most sophisticated realistic 3D digital imagery is
composited from various sources. I have purposely avoided using illusions of
3D space, although most of the imagery indicates forms moving in 3D space.
The space in this work is always broken and self-contradictory as I am more
interested in the way meaning is extracted from imagery than in creating an
illusion of space. The sources of this imagery are twofold. Firstly I have
constructed much new material using 3D animation software. This original
material is combined using compositing techniques, with other material. The
second source of visual material is material taken from databases such as
the Internet, but also video archives, television, and occasionally I have
used old databases such as Muybridge, reconstructing the original movements
of his photo series. The use of Muybridge is a very deliberate demonstration
of the fact that I DO use databases, and that these are an integral part of
my aesthetic principles.
3. I avoid total 3D illusionism because I do not intend to create
illusionist immersion. This would be contradictory to my basic principle
that art provides us with a deeper insight into reality, rather than creates
a new dimension of illusionism in a reality that is already uncertain.
Therefore, if there are 3D objects in this work, they exist, not as a
demonstration of illusory space, but they are used for their potential to
create meaning. In other words, the immersion I wish to create is one, which
should absorb the viewer into a mental process of associations, rather than
delude him with optical illusions.
4. I refuse to write a program text for this work (or any other work in
future) because I do not see how it is possible to translate the artistic
meanings inherent in the work, into non-artistic linguistic forms. If this
were at all possible, the work itself would become invalid. All program
texts I have written in the past were utter nonsense. The work is relevant
to our time, it requires however effort on the part of the viewer to become
engaged with what it is saying. It is a highly complex work in which many
references, visually, tonally and textually, form a net of potential
connective meanings, and it is these potential meanings, which form the core
of this work. The work requires repeated viewing because it is unlikely that
it can be exhausted or completely explored, through only one viewing. That
is also my intention.
The Prologue is (not an explanatory text) a text, which is written in the
same manner as the creation of the work itself.
5. The word “Bedlam” refers to a medieval asylum for mad people in England.
In the 18th Century, such asylums were a source of entertainment. Wealthy
people paid a penny to enter and watch mad people behave crazily. Later the
word came to mean, “a chaotic, uncontrollable situation”. A similar word is
“Shambles”, which Beckett uses symbolically to describe the very substance
of existence.
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