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A text on subjectivity and where I come from, to position my practice today, December 2022, after the first semester. It can be considered an eternal Work In Progress due to the unstatic nature of the topic, but also because I only started editing this yesterday (Wednesday) right before the deadline... So the story is incomplete, the editing is quite bad and I want to make an improved iteration of this shortly.

#artisticresearch

1. Summer 2022

Last summer, I was exploring ‘different realities’ through poetry and film and the expansive meaning of ‘reality in film’. I wanted to move away from documentary film as a non-fictional medium and from fiction film as a pure fictional medium - but rather find something in between. In my summer assignment film, I was testing this idea through the absurdity and ‘trompe l’oeil’ of images vs. words.

One scene popped out for my colleagues, in which I filmed myself dubbing ‘blablabla’ over my own voice-over reciting a poem. As if mocking myself or being unable to speak my mind. The focus quickly turned on me being bullied in the past, but I expressed my desire not to base my research solely on this, as it only partially illustrates where I come from.

A large focus at this stage was my ‘nervus vagus’ writing style and ‘journaling voice’. I often wrote publication material with an audience in mind, but I found it lacked my personality. How could I feel comfortable writing in my most intimate and intuitive writing style, without the fear of superficial judgement?

The summer assignment, with the scene that stuck most with my colleagues: me dubbing my own poem with ‘blablabla’ as a way of mocking my voice or feeling unheard.

Questions on language (October 2022)

How do we approach language? And our responsibility for language?

Without denying the fact that language, as a construct, also provides a stability, a framework.

Can we find a certain stability in these ideas?

Is language enough to communicate? Or is it too much?

Are we saying too much, causing confusion?

Can we come closer in communities despite or thanks to language?

Especially young adults?

Why do we want to categorise in order to understand the world?

2. September-October 2022

During the first workshops, I started focusing on the limitations of language, especially in light of expressing negative emotions (frustration, melancholy - crying, screaming).

After the Pecha Kucha presentations I hit rock bottom mentally, when thanks to the feedback from my peers I realised that my research question was not specific enough. What was I trying to say about language and reality? It seemed too large and unspecific.

In order to understand this phenomenon better, I wrote a creative essay mid-October on the purpose of language, as a means of expression and as a social construct. Continuing the lines of thought of Derrida, Magritte, Lacan and drawing from astrophysics, palaeontology and neuroscience, I considered language an output of our pattern recognition ability, therefore a human ‘survival toolbox’, quickly alarming for danger. Language helped us survive by ‘caging’ patterns with words. But language has evolved and does not only serve survival any longer. Its purpose seems to have shifted.

Inspired by Dr. Nobunye Levin’s workshop on illusional endings and fragmented film, I realised that pattern recognition is an illusion, too. For example, a ‘winter’ does not exist, because it is a seeming ‘copy’ but in itself a complete different time and space than the one that came before. A winter therefore has the inherent characteristic to change its appearance, to become unrecognisable. So the word does not make any sense.

Based on this deep-dive, my question transformed into: What is the purpose of conversation?

If our sensation of time is linear, then everything, from the very start, becomes increasingly complex (if our sensation of time is non-linear, then everything is chaos at all times). Through conversation we pretend to grasp this chaos, but we deny the complex nature of the world by simplifying it. I felt the urge to visualise this exponential chaos in the universe, because we have the right to see the real face of the world without caging it with language.

One of several sketches and drawings of the exponential chaos in the universe to emphasise the illusion of grasping the complexity of the world in words and concepts. Gray chalk on black rock paper.

It naturally, given the linearity of the drawing, became a pattern for causality and the consequences of our actions and behaviour. I wanted to recreate this in 3d for a stronger representation of the concept to come up with new insights, but my research question developed faster than expected.

During this time, I read Giuliana Bruno’s Atlas of Emotion which triggered my ideas on nervus vagus filming, based on her ‘voyageurism’ through a filmic physical space.

I also visited the Venice Art Biennale where I found myself mostly inspired by monumental spatial art pieces and video installations by Janis Rafa and Elisa Giardina Papa, in which the protagonists are animals and language is scarce.

Spatial design by Maria Eichhorn - “Relocating a Structure”, Venice Biennale 2022. Without realising it back then, the radical change of a physical space seems more and more fit to the development of my research today.

Muhannad Shono - “The Teaching Tree” at Venice Art Biennale 2022. This work left a mark on me because of the full use of space and the effect on the general ambiance. As ambiance and zones of comfort and discomfort are themes I want to explore further, especially for young adults, I want to mention this work as an inspiration.

On quantum and human language (November 2022)

My preparatory text for the workshop with Kate Briggs. It shows how I was searching a link between quantum science and human emotions and expression.

Waking: indecision//superposition

I need a girl to represent quantum superpositioning.

Jane. That’s her name. Jane is my quantum girl. Jane will be the electron undergoing the double slit experiment.

She can decide whether to wave through slit one or slit two. Jane is a wave. She is all over the place. Powerful and superpositioning, she moves through both slits at the same time.

Until she is being observed by a detector. All eyes on her.

Before a measurement is made, the quantum system is in all possible states.

Under the eyes of the detector, Jane pretends to choose. Slit one it is.

But this choice changes her whole identity: sliding through slit one, she transforms from a wave into a particle.

It is the most fascinating thing: Jane has changed because of the interaction with her viewer, the detector. All other waves just stay waves - until they also are being watched. This exchange of gazes creates a transformative energy at nano-level.

Has no physicist ever thought of the sensuality behind quantum science? I just needed a girl to embody this doubtful decision-making. This superpositioning. This transformation into an observed outcome.

This is my Ground Idea in this waking phase. Like almost every day around 5 am. The Ground Idea introduces itself from somewhere in between my dreams and the remains of yesterday’s reflections.

I fell asleep thinking of quantum science and the 4th dimension. It is a focus of something I am working on, I don’t know yet what the result will be.

Some quantum physicists say that every time you wake up, you are a reborn, reincarnated version of your dead yesterday’s self, because particles of the sleeping brain can be clinically diagnosed as ‘not alive’.

Schrödinger’s cat. Your brain is the cat, dead and alive at the same time. It is superpositioning. Though luckily not witnessed - I would get all self-conscious if someone was watching me sleep, clench my teeth and drool over my chin. Elegantly recovering from old life.

What is this waking phase then? Something in my head has called me, though I am not sure if this phase can be called waking: it is an in-between moment. I am not asleep, but not awake either.

It is a moment of transcendence. Of weirdness. I like this inclarity, this vagueness. It is rare.

When in life do you get a chance not to choose? And not to be judged for not choosing, for not taking a point of view, for not having an opinion? For superpositioning?

Dans cette maison, l’indécision est tolérée.

The act of waking is the act pur sang of not choosing. Even in your most suicidal mood you cannot decide not to wake. You just do.

The body apparently really wants to wake up.

It is hormone-fuelled, programmed to live.

Maybe waking is living. Maybe waking is unconsciously deciding to live.

Slowly unfolding, like Jane. Waving through a slit, into a particle.

For Dr. Nobunye Levin’s workshop, we were asked to make a fragment to emphasise the illusion of an ending. In this short experimental video, I wanted to show the fragility of parents seeing their kids leave home. My mother disappears behind the mirror as I come into view. Foley sounds from the new living place, a metropolitan city, juxtapose with the calmness of the home village.

The exercise helped me think of narrative structure in a different way. As a writer, I am used to writing techniques and frameworks and it is interesting for me to move away from them instead of applying them.

The feedback from my peers was that this video felt ‘more realist’ than my other work. This, together with the reading “Atlas of Emotion” by Giuliana Bruno as tipped by Nduka Mntambo, led me to develop an idea on ‘voyageurism’ (travelling with the camera through a physical space) and ‘filming from the nervus vagus’ (vagal nerve) for a more sensual, embodied cinema. It is a big part of something I am researching today.

3. End of October - Early November 2022

My text for our first workshop with Kate Briggs shows how I immersed myself into quantum theories to explore the human language. Drifting far off into natural sciences, I realised it was difficult to connect to other artists about my topic. I wanted to relate my research more to the human spheres and societal trends.

I started reading articles about people who don’t communicate, who can’t connect verbally in social spheres, and who subsequently find themselves socially isolated and depressed. I especially looked into social anxiety/social phobia, alexithymia, asceticism or hermeticism and the concept of hikikomori, of which teenagers and young adults seem to be the main victims. This struck me.

From a literary perspective, I have always had an interest in this age group (12-16 years old) and my latest stories revolve solely around them. Young adulthood is such a strange period in which all the structures you have always known start to change and disrupt. Your body and brain, your physical infrastructure, your relationships…

For the first time you are confronted with societal structures, in which you start questioning your identity and role. Suddenly, you are being told not to climb that tree because you are not a kid anymore.

Sir Ken Robinson underlines the importance of creativity in the education of a child - yet schools and social structures worldwide discourage children from pursuing a creative career.

If ‘adult’ stands for ‘framework’ and ‘child’ stands for the opposite of a framework, then in what space does a teenager exist?

In my case, this in-between space led to confusion and frustration and a frequent sense of disconnect with the world around me.

But perhaps I could also learn something from this younger me, on the edge of insecurity and playfulness?

A drawing from when I was a kid: it is clearly more creative and improvised than anything I made after learning existing techniques and frameworks.

During the research consultations, Katarina suggested that I write my own story as a 12 year old, just for myself to understand this focus group better. So I did.

I discovered that writing about my teenage self was writing about escapism, about the pull of ‘other realities’ rather than the one I was living in. It was an exceptionally interesting exercise for a semester focusing on subjectivity and positioning.

Video experiments I made as a teenager (2009, 16 years old) with no specific aim other than the sensual experience of a visual composition. There is a childish freshness and playfulness about this practice. This is something I started referring to as ‘filming from the vagal nerve’ . I find it difficult to move away from existing narrative frameworks, as I noted in Sabine Groenewegen’s workshop. But it is something I want to explore to push myself into new directions.

A conversation with my neuroscientists uncle and brother confirmed my earlier assumptions on (verbal) expression as an outlet to cope with negative emotions.

I realised that my question on ‘what is the purpose of conversation’ was wrongly posed. The purpose of conversation is perhaps not something that lies beyond the conversation itself. The conversation is the purpose: it is the result of something that has been lingering in your thoughts, it is the concrete and tangible ‘being’ of the mind, however invisible. Words become the image.

Conversation is existing, it belongs to the living. Non-expression, therefore, is similar to non-living?

Later, with my brother in the car, I discussed how ‘negativity’ is something we try to avoid, how positivity and happy endings are the ‘norm’, the ‘aimed’ way of living in this society.

Perhaps there is a shortage in our ‘negative’ vocabulary? Films with happy endings, the victory of the ‘good’ and the destruction of the ‘bad’ are a symptom and a cause of this way of thinking. Especially in the west.

It is something I have often written about: how current western societies hold a toxic positive attitude and not enough space for vulnerability and emotional hardship, leaving especially young people with mental health problems.

According to Dr. Kaouthar Darmoni this is caused by a lack of femininity in western societies. Dr. Darmoni states we can learn from non-western societies how to bring back those feminine aspects. I started writing about this in my research material, and looking back at films from Middle East studies (Tunisian “Halfaouine: Child of the Terraces” by Férid Boughedir and Iranian “Children from Heaven” by Majid Majidi). Are children in those films more in touch with their ‘negative’ emotions?

My main example for satisfactory emotional release still comes from Tokyo-based Studio Ghibli’s animation films, where one can rely on the ‘crying scene’. Nothing has to be explained or understood about our emotions - sometimes we can just cry for feeling the chaos of the universe.

Manifesto on Youth Documentaries

1. youth documentary has an image problem: it is the most underrated genre. documentary makers don’t take it seriously

2. youth documentary is mainly practiced by starting filmmakers – and that’s a problem

3. nobody really knows what makes a youth documentary

4. it is a misunderstanding to think that a youth documentary should be a story about a kid

5. kids are interested in fascinating stories – whether it’s about a child, an adult, an animal, a phenomenon, a mystery or a fantasy

6. almost every topic is suitable for a youth documentary. it’s all about how you tell the story

7. most youth documentaries are childish

8. if we want to lift youth documentary to a next level, it is of crucial importance not to consider youth documentary as a steppingstone to documentaries for adults, but as a full-fledged genre in itself

9. if we want to lift youth documentary to a next level, we’ll have to start taking the genre seriously. that means for example: not only 15-minute docs but every possible length

10. if we want to lift youth documentary to a next level, more experimenting is needed: in length, in storytelling, in form, in style, in the choice of topics, in the choice of characters.

Martijn Blekendaal - November 2021

source: http://achterdehorizon.nl/en/2022/07/07/manifest-2/

On the purpose of language (November 2022). My final iteration from an exercise on archive material in the editing workshop of Sabine Groenewegen.

I took this chance to reflect on my questions of language, social connection and the link with natural sciences. I deliberately did not make use of sound. After feedback from my peers, I also took out the text (the literal language) for a second iteration but this was too confusing. Although it is something I would like to explore further in the future.

I discuss much of my research with my dear uncles who are very open to my weirdest questions. From this specific conversation with my uncle AND brother I wrote a fictionalised script. The conversation made me realise that my research focus can move slightly away from natural sciences, and be more related to human spheres and their struggle to connect without a language.

A Note on Nervus Vagus Voyageurism

The writing workshop with Kate Briggs brought me back to poetry and creative writing, in which I feel confident because I clearly have a knowledge of techniques and different ‘frameworks’ that I can apply or consciously move away from.

From Sabine Groenewegen’s editing workshop I learnt that I like to work with such narrative frameworks in editing as well (such as scripts or musical narrative). Not working with any framework, instead of creative liberation, feels unstable for me and too ‘freewheeling’ or ‘subconscious’.

I realised that my October idea on ‘nervus vagus voyageurism’ does not mean ‘complete freewheeling without any vision’, but ‘trusting my eye’ without thinking too much about it. I want to continue to find this balance between the playful teenager and the responsible adult woman.

This is what I also tried in the subjectivity video I made in light of this exam, “Psychogeography from a garden”.

We can’t always be stuck in the same image of violent history. We can add a new image to the same story.

Kumjana

I started creating this playlist as a moodboard to revive back the feeling of me as a teenager in my room

A Note on My Container

My Container consists of two parts: Google Drive and Tumblr.

I know that I write fast and take many notes in Google Docs. Lots of my ideas and writings there get lost into oblivion because they are not relevant. Therefore, I want to keep Google Drive as the first ‘supply’ of all my material. I work in an organised folder.

From there, I want to select the most important steps in my research on Tumblr, in a ‘diary’ or calendar form, as a wink to my very first research struggle on how to find a more personal writing voice, the way I do when I am journaling. The chronological tracking and documentation of a process in general is very important in my personal life as well, so I think this is a practical and suitable form.

The main thing I am struggling with is the design of the Tumblr pages. Right now, the unflexibility between the pages proves an issue that needs be resolved.

Thank you

thank you very much for taking the time to go through my material. I am excited to receive your feedback.

mutar-in-lucertola

To Sophia, BY BERNADETTE MAYER

Now finally I’ve gotten to the bottom of it I’ve got a few minutes left to tell the story of it I gently wake myself up every day in the same delicate kind of dream’s moment Doesn’t everybody wake up sometime to say Don’t bother me again just yet and how did I wind up here I know it’s not poetry to say so but how Did I wind up having to move into another room to write another book And while moving everything to have to study all the old things I’ve kept, endless negatives and slides held up to the light with friends and trees and families on them So many papers and even some checks, old tapes with another voice of mine Exhaustion’s neighbor memory keeps telling me what I used to think then I still think Now nostalgia for a tree makes me dally at the identifying window I’m donating to you, younger daughter, I’m one or was one You need to sleep alone Away from the exotic noisy sleep of groaning parents Who don’t even know what they do or say in their sleep You need to drink thought more privately And not awaken every night in the same energetic need To be comforted and nursed like a baby Sophia you can have my old dark room of wars I’m moving my desk to Main Street to work under the lights Watch out for the rising moon, the looming eastern stars Let’s exchange the awful peace of our nights

dirven-arts

inspirational poem from Bernadette Mayer

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