just to describe the only visual collaborative project i've been involved in
- in Poland a friend of mine was heavily into computer animated video
work yet also composing images through various graphics programs. we
made a connection and produced a short video loop with my voice
reading a line from a poem by Ulli Freer "how far do your quills drop over
the side of the pier when waves pull on which table can you use a
laptop" with a sampled and doctored hip hop sample behind and a visual
loop of geometric designs. Quite rudimentary but exciting - an association
and combining of textures.
For a reading I was to do in poland Milosz suggested we produce some
slides - i typed some poems into the computer - a long poem you'll
remember Ira - speak for itself - and some shorter pieces. Intially Milosz
led the way as I was pretty unsure what the software could do. He
basically treated the text as image which we coloured, moved around
blurred added background texture to etc etc - visually sumptous tho the
early ones tend to display a rather acid ice-cream effect as we dubbed
it - i'd say "too much acid Milosz!" he'd say "not enough Scotty!" As i
became more aware of what the stuff could do (including the fun-named
"texture explorer"!) I had a more realized input and the process became
genuinely collaborative. we treated some texts very minimally with simple
geometric shapes boxing the text and muted colours and others with a
more refined approach to texture as the acid wore off. They were very
beautiful when we finished. Milosz suggested ( he couldn't read my
poetry very well it might be added) that "all books of poetry should look
like that". he photographed the images off the screen and made some
marvellous slides which i may display at SVP in January if its possible (is
it possible Lawrence?)
when i did the reading we projected them on two large screens between
and in front of which i read - the images synchronising with the text
being performed.
we did plan to do another gig featuring Milosz doing some live video
mixing of prepared loops/images plus a camera on me as i was reading
as an additional source tho it never came together as we were in
different countries by the summer.
i did record a version of speak for itself onto his computer though, which
one day may emerge as a video mix but i am still waiting to see it - it'll be
up to Milosz as to how that one goes visually.
Is that the kind of thing you had in mind Ira?
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|