Today the heat was unbearable. The mercury hit 110 Fahrenheit, which is 43 degrees, and definitely the most intense heat I’ve ever experienced. Filming outdoors during the heat of the day was out of the question: I did try, got as far as the lake and then had to come back to the cool of the air-conditioned studio. It means I’m having to do my filming at night or get up really early in the morning to try and catch sunrise plus the hours before the sun hits. Everyone is pretty much hiding indoors.
I did attempt filming at night, having looked up a few night time taglines- unsurprisingly they are mostly within the sad/ scary/ spooky spectrum. The actual filming is quite tricky as you have to carry torches, candles and the camera kit, but more than that it’s the bugs: they are a plague in this evening heat, constantly circling and buzzing. I got bitten all over my arms during this filming attempt and am now too scared to go back out there, meaning today has been pretty unproductive. Having looked over the footage I realise how hard it is to avoid the Blair Witch/ schlock horror movie clichés. It might take a little experimentation, and of course I may never use any of it, but I try not to worry too much about that- every time you try something out, there is a movement of the cogs somewhere at the back of my mind and you can never tell what will come out of trying random ideas out.
Meanwhile Francois, one of the artist here, said that the videos of the woman wrapped in fabric and with fabric on her head had reminded him of the debate happening today in France’s National Assembly discussing the proposed ban of wearing the veil in public places. Interesting connection.
Anyway, being trapped in the studio has meant time to do a bit of reading, I found a book called ‘the writing on the wall’ which is all about text in art. Its interesting because (so far) its talking more about the interface of the graphic/ conceptual in written language (rather than other aspects, such as spoken word/ image relationships which you come across in discussions of video, or instruction/ score in art works). It mentions for example the mistrust that existed in Plato’s time about the written alphabet, that it was a dangerous technology would lead t the degradation of memory and to factual inaccuracies as well as deception being passed down throughout the ages through the distancing of author from reading that written language allows; then the separation of the act of writing, i.e. its performative aspect and its origin in the body, from the alphabet through mechanization and the printing press. There was an example of a protestant altar piece, where visual depictions of holy scenes are eschewed in favour of written descriptions, using text that was meant to be as undecorative as possible- the idea of the visual as sensual, as seductive, not to be trusted, and of the word as purely conceptual, therefore closer to God. In terms of the project I’m working on here, the relationship between word and image is more important; there is a sense of battle for supremacy between the ‘instruction’ (i.e. the tagline) and the resulting ‘action’ i.e. the video, the image. The question is, can the image stand alone? Or is it precisely about the two together, the meaning the two generate against one an other. More on this later.
