Like a Labyrinth (part 2)
Edges, everywhere: notes on a creative process
Let’s pick back up where we left off — in my last post Like a Labyrinth (part 1) I introduced the idea of the edge and how they are inspiring a new line of research in my practice, and how a book of lectures on labyrinths published by Spector Books overlapped with my participation in a UKAI Projects residency, Intelligent Terrain, at Ferme Lanthorne in Wakefield Québec earlier this May.
I like to think of my walks in wood not as recording or capturing as much as field work and embodied research. To be honest, everything is embodied, since we all always have bodies (until we don’t); what I mean here is more an intention of being body.
The labyrinth ontology of disorientation, not knowing, and getting lost interests me in the way that labyrinths (as I was reminded by the residency coordinator and collaborator, Luisa Ji) are all edge. The edge isn’t the boundary of the labyrinth — the edge is the labyrinth. In a world where being lost is seen as such a failure, even though to be lost is actually requisite to knowing where one’s going in the first place, I wanted to sink into lost-ness. Think David Lynch’s Inland Empire meets Man vs. Wild. Getting lost might take me closer to the edge. The Edge of Glory.
Performing my field work, I lost myself in Ferme Lanthorne’s woods. 360° camera attached to my helmet, I found myself off the path walking among maple saplings and patches of young birch, fresh spring ferns and the early year’s trillium. I followed the stream to try to get back to the farmhouse, only to find myself missing a bridge to reach the other side.
I found my way back eventually. And later that evening, after a delicious dinner crafted by Bob of the Ferme, I finally pulled the mini SD out from the 360° camera and into a standard SD and the standard SD into my laptop and watched back the nearly two hours of footage. Mind you, this was Friday evening, a generous 18 hours before we were to present our work to the local community.
I had already typed up and lightly edited the poetry I had written during the residency. I most often write sporadically or spontaneously, only returning to the page later to recall what a particular moment brought me. Most of what I had written came as I was listening to presentations and conversations, or reading about labyrinths and Eros and AI. The verse, then, is a strange mix between what I read and (over)heard, my embellishments and situational reflections therein.
And there I found some gems: “Is beauty important? / Questions, for example / a rock”; “another language of use / to understand, also / a large field of tasks”; and “trespassing the periphery of the skin / edging the myth of the body / as a body, coming.”
The raw elements ready, my next step was to select video clips and lines of verse to create a short film.
At this point I should say that this was only my second time making a film project, and the first time doing so in a way that I wanted to share with an audience. I didn’t quite know what I was doing, or how I would make a short film that reflected the vision I had for something disorienting, poetic, and strange that would touch on edges as well as ecological and technological intelligences.
Like all beginners, I started from the beginning. I decided that I wanted to situate the video within a dream and place the viewer in a dreamlike state from the jump. I began with iphone video I shot at night on the edge between the farmhouse’s field and the forest. It was raining lightly, and the flash of my camera caught hints of raindrops falling past its lens. I also included video of a still-dormant crop of weeds I filmed that night. The nocturnal dream sequence continues with footage of a bare tree receiving fluttering light from a headlamp and that of the wearer of the headlamp alongside three others (and a dog) handling a ladder, projector, and other unknown equipment.
As I continued adding video to my sequence in premier pro, I overlaid it with fragments of poetry. Taking from the longer pieces I’d written at the farm, I wanted the text to speak with the video but not for it. I wanted to avoid narration at all costs. For example, the first lines are: “Is it easy for you to accept determination? / Neither accurate, the question / of free will still haunts you” set against the dark of night. These lines come from a provocative dinner conversation the night before.
To be continued. . .
Coming up!
Monday is my birthday UwU and that evening I will be sharing online again with the Poetry Project for their Spring 2024 workshop reading. I’ve been taking Rachel James’s Trick Methods class while here in New York, where we’ve been experimenting with the art of deceit through text, sound, and movement. I’ll share something new that I’ve been working on that involves books, algorithms, and many voices (possibly, even, your own!). Register to attend online at 7PM EST on Monday June 3rd — it’s free and you’ll make me really happy! : )
Like what you’re reading? Want to celebrate my 28th year around the sun with me? If you don’t already, consider becoming a contributing subscriber to my Substack! If you have the capacity to do so, your support would go a long way in keeping this public writing practice going.
Follow along with my research at the Center for Book Arts in New York on my instagram stories, where I’m sharing a book a day from my investigations into unconventional and poetic representations of landscape and environment in artist books!
Finally, check out this graphic I designed for Chicago’s newest party series, Mutualism. My pal Starka has been hard at work planning the party, which will take place on 07 July at the Whistler, to be accessible for immunocompromised folks and everyone who wants to dance hard while being covid-safe. Follow Mutualism’s instagram for updates!
