Rubies In Crystal

Rumblefish Copyright Notice from YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:50:45 PST

Dear Rumblefish,

I have received copyright notice from YouTube that I've used your music.

I am in shock.

No, I have not used your music, nor violated any copyright as far as I know. Reciting a poem I had written (which I can prove), I generated a midi file on-line with text from the poem (which is entirely legal and free, I know one of the creators of that site), and looped a few seconds of some garageband sounds in the distant background. I've scoured GarageBand and do not see anywhere that using a short loop of a few seconds is illegal.

So I am *very* confused.

I can send a .jpg of my GarageBand track.

YouTube is going to put an ad on a video that I slaved over - making that track was a lot of work!

Can you explain to me why you are claiming my voice track as yours? The commercial world can be befuddling to a poet.

http://youtu.be/cj4wdx03Lhk

Thank you,

Brenda Clews

An hour later I sent a second email:

Please Note: I made the sound track myself - from my own voice recording of me reciting my own poem and using a midi file that I generated from my own text and a few small GarageBand loops, as my screen capture of my GarageBand file shows. I've lodged a Dispute Claim with YouTube.

Thank you so much for your kind attention to this matter.

I hope it is resolved soon.

regards,

Brenda

I thought no-one would take the time to watch Tangled Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:15:41 PST

I am humbled and amazed by these responses to my latest and most ambitious and longest videopoem, Tangled Garden. I thought no-one would take the time to watch it, and I am still taken aback that anyone has. I have a confession to make, I save these comments for bleak days. You have no idea how you inspire me and how much I love you all.

Francois Caroline writes: "Yes this film is good, I am a French poet, writing all day long, but I have never seen such a beautiful creation."

Pierre-Marie Cœdes writes: "I am astounded by so much intelligent creativity : poem, recitation, body performance, imagery, effects, editing, the music with entrancing voice ... all this has led me into an hypnotic voyage, guided by an entrancing voice depicting a world of sensations, inside invisible universal actions, kaleidoscope beings... I just could not take my eyes off the rapture of the incessant movements of the beautiful energized figures in motion ... and ... and ... this is a real masterpiece of art in motion, the expression of a human spirit entangled in so many nature forces, creating, destroying, returning ...

Read the explanation of the author, Brenda Clews, if you do not want to lose your senses ...

Awesome and astounding ..."

Bill Sprague writes: "I just finished watching it. Oh My God, Brenda !! -- That was AMAZING.. I have not had the pleasure to absorb anything so powerful in at least a dozen years. Spiritual, mystical, classically timeless... flowers fly with my standing ovation. Excellent Work !!!"

direct link: Tangled Garden

Tangled Garden is a triptych of nature poems (by me):

-A Floral Opera (2011)
-In the Hands of the Garden Gods (1979)
-Slipstream, the Tangled Garden (2006)

(with impromtu speaking between the poems, which each end with ~~~ in the subtitle track.)

Beautiful singing by the musician, Catherine Corelli from her album, Seraphic Tears (2010) (with her permission).

Note: This video is subtitled. Click on the CC on the play bar to activate or de-activate the subtitles. YouTube will also automatically translate the subtitles into 25 languages if English is not your main language and you would like to get the gist of the poetry.

A blog post describing the making of Tangled Garden.

Videopoem: 'Tangled Garden, a triptych of nature poems'

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:46:26 PST

direct link: Tangled Garden, a triptych of nature poems by Brenda Clews, 2012.

Tangled Garden: a triptych of nature poems, a video/filmpoem by Brenda Clews

-A Floral Opera (2011)
-In the Hands of the Garden Gods (1979)
-Slipstream, the Tangled Garden (2006)

(with impromtu speaking between the poems, which each end with ~~~ in the subtitle track.)

Beautiful singing by the musician, Catherine Corelli mixed from her album, Seraphic Tears (2010) on Jamendo (with her permission).

Note: This video is subtitled. Click on the CC on the play bar to activate or de-activate the subtitles. YouTube will also automatically translate the subtitles into 25 languages if English is not your main language and you would like to get the gist of the poetry.

In contrast to the zippy, fast cuts and commercial-like flavours of many video/filmpoems, Tangled Garden is a slow virtually single-shot video. It is an 'art film.' It is 22 minutes of slowed-down footage. It does move through a process that is Surreal and dream-like. Not much happens, but a lot passes by, if you know what I mean. Tangled Garden is the opposite of an action film.

It has taken 9 months to produce this video. I used some of the footage - you might recognize it - for two 'Solstice' videopoems, non-religious celebrations, one commemorating the beginning of my favourite season, Summer, 'Green Goddess' Masque and one celebrating finding the light in the darkness of Winter, Shadow Cave, because I liked the dance clips, but they were always intended for this videopoem. Tangled Garden is a major piece for me.

Tangled Garden unfolds in a spatial and painterly way; it is not narratorial or linear. I often work with doubles, dopplegängers and reflections, with subjectivities, the selves that compose us, and there is little of that here, but minimally. Rather, the focus is the poetry itself. Three nature poems are spoken as a voiceover, poems that span 30 years. I made a subtitle track (that took 3 days with lots of subsequent corrections), so you can read along if you like.

Three clips form the visual tracks of the video poem. The initial background was shot in early May 2011 in Niagara Falls and the two dance clips on different days in High Park in Toronto (accompanied by my daughter who read while the tripod held the camera videoing me dancing) in June 2011. Both of the dance clips have been worked extensively in Final Cut to arrive at the visual patterns that you see here. As an artist, my video work is very painterly, and I find I compose video canvases based on the static, pictorial vision of a painting. Perhaps they are paintings in motion.

After I shot the initial footage of the plant foliage on May 9, 2011, during a sleepless night on that trip I watched the clip over and over on the small viewfinder of my video camera, wondering what I would do with it. Without seeing earth or sky, a breeze blowing through the tangle of leaves and stalks, light breaking through when the wind was stronger, I found it very rhizome-like, and it reminded me of my memories of my life in that I could enter or exit anywhere and still arrive at an understanding of who I am.

I wrote 'A Floral Opera' (2011) for that initial footage, and for Catherine Corelli's voice in her incredible neoclassical metal album, Seraphic Tears, which I had listened to enroute to Niagara Falls.

Tangled Garden is composed of three earth poems. 'A Floral Opera' is, I feel, one of my most successful poems. Later in the year, having collected 20 years worth of my journals in a large basket, I began going through them, and found a poem written in 1979 based on a dream I had had. 'In the Hands of the Garden Gods' (1979) describes that dream, and it seemed to match the footage and was another approach to the themes 'A Floral Opera' alluded to. I decided to include the older poem. Currently I live near the rooming house where I had rented a small ground floor apartment as a graduate student and where I wrote 'Garden Gods,' and one night, quite far along in the editing of the filmpoem, I had a 'Eureka moment' on the street corner near the house where I once lived: the strange central figure that I have created in the video, the one who moves slowly through the 22 minutes, almost exactly duplicates the transforming earth muse figure, the "lady, lady, lady" who appeared in the dream I had in 1979! Our lives are a strange unity. The final poem that I included was another earth poem, 'Slipstream, the Tangled Garden,' (2006) about hungry ghosts, time, death and the resurrection of life that continues through us even if when we shall no longer exist.

In between the three poems is some ad-libbed talking that I initially did while watching the footage and which my daughter encouraged me to include in the final version. The impromptu speaking is a bit repetitive, but perhaps that's a welcome refrain from the densely packed imagery of each of the poems. After each of the 'official' poems I have put '~~~' in the subtitle track to note their ending and that what follows is a speaking between poems.

The themes in the poems are quite complex, but also they are rich with imagery that I hope holds your attention. They are strange, Surreal, dream-like, body-based, earth-centred, full of reflection, passion, living. The three poems together cover the span of a lifetime of rumination on Nature, the meaning of being alive, having a woman body, birth, life, death, amidst the heritage of our intellectual culture and the extraordinary creativity of our planet which I call the "green fire." A planet we are busy overrunning with our extreme fertility as a species and our polluted ways. I don't, however, push the 6th mass extinction that we are in, though the outlook for our species is gloomy. Emphatically, the "green fire" is far stronger than us. We are merely representations, minuscule embodiments of the earth's creative energy. I embrace the earth's deep and fecund creativity. In the tangled garden of our lives on our natal earth there is beauty, grace, love, compassion, sorrow, fear, caring, and sweetness, sweetness.

Tangled Garden is a Chartreuse Videopoem

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:15:01 PST

Photograph from my videopoem, Tangled Garden, 2012. The resolution of the final video won't be too bad, I think. A fair bit of chartreuse, and other spring greens - the footage is a mixture of 3 clips, one from early May, two from later in June 2011 - that smaller figure on the left also does not appear too often in the videopoem. It's an art film, slow, spatial and painterly rather than narratorial and linear. Made by a single artist rather than a team, a very slow performance piece. The poetry spans 30 years, so represents a lifelong rumination on an earth-centred vision and spirituality. Currently saving a version for uploading to YouTube. Subtitles all done. This is my most ambitious project to date.

The past is always growing...

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:52:05 PST

The past is always growing in relation to the present. We add everything we are to the moment we are in, and that keeps expanding the more we live. Personally I love the complexity that my memories add to everything I think of and do. A pebble or a cloud is entirely different now to when I was four years old, and I prefer now. But then, I enjoy aging, and revel in the richness of the inner experiences which continue to enrich the world I dwell in and which so beautifully surround me as I continue my journey through it. Every day is a gift - a gift that keeps growing as my memories of living this living gift compound.

FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'You' by Elise Marianne

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:06:49 PST

direct link: 'You' by Elise Marianne

Poem/vocals/music/video by Elise © Elise Marianne 2012
http://elisepoetry.webs.com/

What I most like about Elise Marianne's videopoem, You, is it maintains an inherent mystery that has an antique, vintage, old world feel. Her work seems to emerge from the distant past into our time. In You the black silhouette plane which contains the crow is like a window we look through, a window of black lace, the bird from some imagined world figuring in ours. It is as if Edgar Allen Poe's crow sits, in silhouette, watching. "...shards of glass about my fingers," the poet says, and it is like we are breaking windows, reaching backward and forward through time.

The poem in the videopoem is on unrequited love, again we are in a distant world of Courtly love, of the Metaphysical poets, of Emily Dickinson behind her lace curtain dreaming of a richly endowed love. "Your eyes a stilled moon-pond /Where I shall drown if I enter." The crow becomes a nightingale, a bird singing of love. But, the deep blacks, sepia and reds of the palette the poet has chosen to convey her vision work on us. "Mouth to barb wire / your mouth around that fenced forest," and we are back again in the mystery of loss, separation, graves, the past that never ends. "Scars of names etched on every oak that bore the name." Distantly, echoing, old Celtic mysteries, Druidic lore, these wind in and out of Lise's video poem. "Pain is longing; pain is love: a bitter twist that makes us human. But are you human?" These ghostly questions resound, her voice echoing after itself. There is warmth to this crypt-like vision, again I am reminded of the great popularity vampire lore currently enjoys, and there is a sense of foreboding, yet an agelessness that is without fear, here too. "What do you expect from me here on the edge for gifts for your ungiving hands?" And, yes, we all know: "This voice is tired of being unheard." It is a dark poem. "Black crows are yours. Dead of night. Shards of glass about my fingers." "This voice is tired of being unheard, tired of waiting. I am done with your silence. Done with the coldness of your winters."

Elise's voice, her wonderful British accent, is clear as a bell, with smoky edges to it. Her visuals are simply gorgeous. She is a poet who makes videopoems who I have been following for some time. Thus far, she has mostly worked with slideshows and I am happy to see her begin to incorporate found footage from various Internet archives into her work.

You is one of her most successful pieces to date. Do check out her website.

From Elise's website:

Elise, is a UK poet, and the founder and editor of International poetry magazine Decanto. Her work has been included in various magazines and anthologies both in the UK and Internationally.

She has written many collections of poetry, including 'For All Eternity', 'The Last Lament', 'Paradise', 'Opium Valentines' and 'Sacred Realm'. She is currently working on a new collection.

Her collections have been widely reviewed. She has also been featured and interviewed in various magazines and ezines, both in the UK and abroad, including;

The Tower Journal USA
Sonnetto Poesia Canada
Gloom Cupboard USA
Book Seekers agency UK ......

Her relay interview with US poet Mary Ann Sullivan, about the poet 'Hilda Doolittle' was featured in 'Jacket2' 2009.

Elise's poetry is often described as Metaphysical/Romanticism, with strong visual imagery. The concept of bringing together words, music and images brought about the idea of video poetry, a field which seems to suit the strong visual quality of her work. Her video poetry also includes her own musical compositions.

Her poetry video collaboration 'Conceptus' with American poet Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, has recently been accepted by the Southbank Centre London.

she writes;

'I like to totally immerse myself in creating video poems. I think it is the ideal way to collaborate multi media, of poem, image and music; the next best thing to a stage production, which has always been a dream of mine. I love the expression of words and how the spoken voice can convey the feeling or emotion of the poem... and of course the music, which I so enjoy creating. It is very satisfying to be able to bring all aspects together collectively'.

Almost There!

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:37:19 PST

I did some very simple things to my 22 minute triptych of nature poems, Tangled Garden, and now have to wait for 9 hours of rendering! Then I'll save to a video format for uploading, which will likely take another 9 hours, then upload to YouTube, and wait for their processing to complete, so, tweets, peeps, and friends, maybe this project that's taken the greater part of a year will be live by Thursday!

Finishing it is on my 2012 list, and yay, almost there! Only 3 more pre-planned projects to go! Colour of Near Death, Wear White Paint for the Moon, and Double Lotus, the last two are performance pieces, which are hard for me to justify doing, given my age, but ageism is not my problem (it's yours if you discriminate against older women), onward, fearless, fearless!

Subtitling Tangled Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:58:50 PST

Moved my triptych of nature poems, Tangled Garden, forward by 2 seconds and had to manually adjust 282 subtitles! Sigh - all in the name of art. (And even then, am finding a few small errors in the timing of the subtitles as I go through the track.)

The pic is from a low resolution .m4v (iPhone quality) that I am using to check the subtitles.

Titling 'Tangled Garden'

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:49:48 PST

As I finally draw near to completion with this 22 minute video project, I have to do the titles.

I took the original video May 9, 2011, and watched it over and over on the viewfinder of my video camera, wondering what I would do with it. It is very rhizomatous. In June I went to the park with my daughter twice to video some creative movement, yoga dance, whatever you want to call it, for this long videopoem. Out of that footage I did make two solstice videos last year, commemorating the sun's closeness ('Green Goddess' dance) and distance (Shadow Cave), and those videos have done very well (relatively speaking) I am happy to say. Tangled Garden might be live by the end of the week - how exciting that prospect is! Months and months of work finally coming to completion.

Ok. It's an 'art video' - not much happens, but..... that's alright. It has its own magic.

Anyway, it is a triptych of 3 long poems, which I did spend 3 days subtitling, so that should work out nicely.

So here are the titles - any suggestions are appreciated!

Tangled Garden

a film by Brenda Clews

a triptych of nature poems

by Brenda Clews

-A Floral Opera (2011)

-In the Hands of the Garden Gods (1979)

-Slipstream, the Tangled Garden (2006)

with the singer Catherine Corelli

from her album, Seraphic Tears (2010).

_____
at the end:

TANGLED GARDEN

written, spoken, performed, videoed and edited
by ©Brenda Clews 2012

brendaclews.com

with special thanks to
Catherine Corelli

'Seraphic Tears':
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/79547

Woman in Red and Blue (final painting)

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:10:45 PST

Woman in Red and Blue, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, mixed media.

Posting again because I fiddled a bit with and cropped this portrait. The scanner, while enabling a high resolution/good colour image, misses texture. One day I'll get a decent camera to take these paintings - this one is scored with lines from toothpicks, dental tools, knitting needles, and different media - pens, inks, paints, rubbings and scratchings... I didn't like the initial sketch (self portrait drawn looking into a mirror) and was too impatient to work on it so I thought I'd see how the figure could emerge through washes of black paint, and then all the other media I used, inks, acrylics, oils, from fountain pen inks, dip pens, ball point pens and brushes and cloths. Often I spray fixatives between layers too, so there's a few of those. A figure does emerge, and there's a welter of emotion in that worked surface. I have a 30" x 40" Windsor and Newton canvas still unopened for a self portrait, and so am doing studies, not just for facial features (haven't hit home quite yet) but for painting techniques.

Hans Silvester: Tribus del olmo

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:16:13 PST

From Storyculture: Hans Silvester describes his mission, "what’s most important for me is saving, in some way, as much as possible of this truly living art, which is mobile, changing, subject to infinite variation, and whose constituent elements are simple and form a link between man and nature. It seems to me that our modern painting found the purpose of these elements, this simplicity, and used it as its foundation."

Learn more about Hans Silvester's time with the L'omo people at the Marlborough Gallery website.

HERE IS A SLIDE SHOW OF MORE THAN FIFTY OF SILVESTER'S IMAGES

Tribus del olmo

The Painted People of the Surma and Mursi Tribes in Southern Ethiopia - Photos by Hans Silvester.

These people, their rituals, what to us is face painting but to them a calling and embodiment of the spirits, are caught on camera in beautiful portrait shots. They are hesitant, you can see that, before the clicking black machine that the photographer holds. Yet they allow us to steal their images away to show in galleries and books, to post on the NET and spread around the world in ways they will never see or understand. Watching is a complex process of awe, wonderment, tenderness, voyeurism, and a wish to imitate. Yes, paint my face in white and ochre, pigments from ground rocks, shards, plants, and put garlands of flowers and vegetation around my head and I'll dance shamanically calling and embodying whatever Modern spirits who are in the vicinity and happen to be attracted.

It would be a cacophony.

If it wasn't for copyright restrictions, I would put many of these images in my forthcoming 22 minute videopoem, Tangled Garden.

Woman in Red and Blue

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:50:50 PST

From my Moleskine Project today:

Woman in Red and Blue, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, mixed media.

You might guess, I am working on studies for a self portrait painting. Still haven't achieved a good likeness (according to my beloved children), 'but,' they say, they 'like them anyhow.'

I layered this with different types of inks, pens, paints, scratchings, and so on. You might be able to see the detail if it opens in full screen and gives you an option to view at original size.

Let's hope so.

:)

While the darker image is from a scanner, this is closer to what the painting looks like in bright natural daylight (it's an earlier version, too).

Concerto n°9 by Pierre-Marie CŒDES

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:30:13 PST

Royalty Free Music - Stock Music Library | Jamendo PRO
direct link to Pierre-Marie CŒDES' Concerto n°9 on Jamendo

direct link to Pierre-Marie CŒDES' Concerto n°9 on SoundCloud

Pierre-Marie CŒDES' Concerto n°9 opens with a trumpet call. A swan is glides over the still water of the river. It is dawn. The sun rises with strings and drums. Such tension in the music, coiled, ready to open, and when the piano begins, it does. We are flowing in a dance of water birds. The water is a thick glass floor and when a plummet is thrown, it dives down and down. There is no end to the depth of this music.

We are brought back to the fingers, nimble playing, the breath, even clear notes. The swans lift out of the water, drops of water falling from their wings, angels rising into the brightening sky.

Flutes, reeds flowing to the music. Those on the banks witnessing the ballet of birds in the water, still, awe.

The Allegreto is restrained and draws its power from its restraint.

There is such joy in the melody. The piano sings, lightly across the keys, deeply in the bass notes.

Trills, lightly, lightly, the swans have become ballet dancers with wings. They are sweeping around and around.

Newness arises with the sunrise, the day opens with Pierre-Marie's Concerto N°9. He is ever gentle with us, inspiring us to awake and swim with the day, to sing and dance with the joy of living deep in our hearts.

By Andante, the river flows through plains and vast open spaces. We are in a Surreal land where fairytales turn into operas, where passion fills the landscape. There is magic as the river flows. The dancers have deepened their dance of life to include lonelinesses, moments of quiet communion with what is divine, and all the while distant trumpets remind us of the strength of our spirits. The piano, as ever, sings its notes, carrying the central voice of the Concerto.

In our metaphor of river music, the piano carries us through rapids, drops, over rocks, winds through forests, allowing nature in all its beauty to be seen.

Sometimes we are flying over the river, watching our lives progress, watching the widening of our experience as we move slowly towards the ineffable.

Lovers dance quietly in the peaceful but steady dream that this symphonic concerto opens.

Sometimes there is drama, yes, moments, but the overall flow of joy rushes on.

A catchy jazzy rhythm, with rich Classical undertones.

By the end of Andante, the breadth of Pierre-Marie Coedes vision becomes evident.

Dancers like swans fill our imagination.

Allegro begins with almost a jazz beat, distant flamenco, under a sweet, encompassing blend of instruments. The day is steadily revolving with the sun in trills, moments of flight, laughter, pain, togetherness, the echo of all creation communing.

Our ballet dancers are almost doing a slow tango, their wings open behind them as they swirl, bend, bow.

We are nearing the ocean, a regal entry into oneness. All the levels are echoing, singing, trills, notes, repetitions, a choral of complex patterns and pastel overlays, the harsh lines only rise from the depths, pulling the movement together so that it ends with a flourish of delicate piano notes, everything is shimmering, the pulse of life is here, its stunning gift.

Iridescent Blue Face

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:27:18 PST

From my Molsekine Project today:

Iridescent Blue Face, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multimedia.

Study for a Self-Portrait Painting

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:52:05 PST

Self-Portrait Study, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, graphite.

A study for a self-portrait that I plan to paint... will have to try a few more sketches, I guess. Not quite right, but recognizable enough. Just did this one now, after a frigid dog walk. I do look so serious, but then, I am. :) Though pretty much always smile, guess I was intently drawing - in a dark room, too. 2B pencil. Note to self: smile a little when you do the painting. :)

Coil of Koi in Dark Water

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:24:17 PST

Coil of Koi in Dark Water, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.

Finished, unless I slightly whiten some of those Koi edges. I sparingly brushed the koi with some translucent paints (vellum, blue, orange, yellow), which glimmer. The fish have a pearlescence that you can see if you tilt the painting in the light.

They are like angels rising from Dante's Inferno.

Earlier version:

Coil of Fish, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.

I have rubbed this out many times! Was going to scratch the koi out and add oranges, yellows, golds; so far, it's not working. I used a wooden toothpick to scratch the koi out, but the underpainting of acrylic 'bone black' had dried too much, leaving them with a ghostly presence.

They are like angels rising in dark water, and I may have to just accept that.

In process!

From my recent NaNo novel: 'When the plump Chinese lady who owned the store came over to feed the koi, the fish swirled to the top of the tank, a mass of watercolours and oils coiling and curving and looping in and out of each other as each fish rose to eat bits of the koi feed. Their gills translucent against the misted windows of the store.

The glass thinned, melted and the koi are flung out of the tank as the water rushed out, a coiling, spawning tidal wave. The gills of the koi became soft wings, they grew like when you drop a stopper of ink into water and patterns of ink coil and flow outwards and upwards as they disperse. The koi’s filmy, translucent wings spread and grew thinner as they rose, a coiling mass of golds, oranges, yellows and browns, a living tree spinning upwards, a whirlpool of fish like leaves flowing into the sky, for the ceiling had disappeared.'

FRIDAY VIDPOFILM: 'Live! - part 3' by KiNo

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:44:48 PST

An email notification on Sep 26, 2011:

The user named KiNo just added you as a contact on Vimeo.

KiNo's profile on Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/maneatingseas

The email still unread, a few nights ago I clicked on the link. There are a series of videos of the "Poet of Sound and Image," a young man with a British-style accent who is likely of Russian origin called KiNo. KiNo writes songs, is a performer, a public personality.

His films are oddities in that they seem composed of a mash of images that are flung together without planning or thought. Are they brilliant postmodern montages of contemporary life or bits of filmic captures, the kind we would all have on our cameras if we walked around filming ourselves in the city? Are they a 'found poetry,' meaning not pre-planned but plucked from many hours of video and spliced together in an almost random way?

The video I chose (or it chose me, for I am never sure about this) for this week's VidPoFilm seems a patching of sequences of images together with a voiceover (by different narrators, one fully in Russian with no subtitles) that gives depth to the moving images of the band of musicians as they visit a medical museum, set up and perform before an audience, look at buildings, drive around in taxis, and disappear into Central Park discussing the moon with backpacks at night at the end.

Live! — Part 3 from KiNo on Vimeo.
Poet of Sound and Image KiNo presents a film in episodes: Live!
Documentary of life and collaborations in New Vague City.

This film is dedicated to my friend Ira Cohen who passed away recently; leaving behind a materialised account of the akashic records in his poems, photographs, films and inspiring conversations with the individuals whom were graced by his friendship.

With highlights from the KiNo Exhibition — Invasion from Within.
Featuring footage of the performances with musical legends Malcolm Cecil (Pioneer of electronic music) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths).

Ira Cohen film
The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda
http://www.arthurmag.com/?s=the+invasion+of+thunderbolt+pagoda

Made by 9
_

This film is ostensibly a memorial to a poet who KiNo knew and loved, Ira Cohen, 1935-2011.

Ira Cohen narrates a poem, presumably his, and, while it isn't until the end, because it is the core of the video, I place it here:

Whatever truly dies stays dead forever,

except the spirit live,

and redeem the spark,

this I saw in a luminous glass,

A YouTube trailer of Ira Cohen's underground and groundbreaking film - "Invasion of Thunderbold Pagoda (1968) - Inside his 'mylar chamber'" is shown. There is a scene with a man who is white with a large elfin ear having dried grasses placed on his face by stage crew… his eyes are closed, he is smiling…

Cohen's voiceover continues,

stand tall as the flame,

which ignites the dark,

of the dark to come,

A performer in seems to be sucking red ribbon sucking into mouth. The footage is strange, Fellini-like, and it is shot with Cohen's technique of using mylar.

The final lines cannot be transcribed without watching, his voice carries the emotion of prophesy, a lifetime of experience, and the closeness of death:

surrender me not to the formless and unusable worlds of the incomplete

in the hope of eternal return as if in a magical tale of my own telling, it will be so...

Let's go back to the beginning of the video. Whatever KiNo's video is, it is a journey video. We follow KiNo and his musicians around his city, New Vague City, which is a euphemism for New York City perhaps in the way that Albion was for William Blake. KiNo has a mystic side, and he refers to the transcendental from time to time.

But nothing is dwelt on; nothing lingers. We move quickly. The video opens with a man walking up steps from a dark interior, like a boat's hold, to a square of light, and Cohen's voice, "Poetry may be next to prophecy, but I also know life is next to death, that sanity lives next door to insanity."

There are shots of a camera lens, with the subtitle, "optical purgatory," a name KiNo gave to a song he wrote about transcendental dreaming. A poem is recited by a woman in Russian, subtitled, "yes, please, rise us from the dead."

What follows is a smorgasbord of images. These is a skeleton on display and a brain on a stainless steel stem, images which I found took us into the strangeness of the body itself. We are in the realm of medicine, the body, it's construction, mortality. Subtitles appear, "we are still in the realm of blood and tears." Then, moving escalators, an old lecture room, a man's head in silhouette against a brown wall with name stickers on it. A silhouette of a hand, angelic clouds, "your palms hold a million starts to new legion of stars," a silhouetted woman in profile with her hair in a bun passes by. "But, man, permit us to land. At home, I am innocent..." and something that looks like tags on a wall showing the solar system with the silhouette of the back of a man's heading watching.

An older man's voice begins, Cohen's, and his poetry is the most interesting aspect of the videopoem. He says, "radio waves bouncing around in the void," and bright sparks from soldering metal appear.

KiNo narrates, "and this is the natural course in the events of the energy," while the camera zooms in on an office, bare concrete walls, a desk, two chairs and a white business phone. Then KiNo in white on a white couch being interviewed by a woman in black with long wavy auburn hair who speaks English, "You're a poet of sound and image...?"

Then an announcement, subtitled on screen beneath a brain on display, "KiNo Sonic Exhibition in June - Invasion from Within (Russian Announcement)." Dramatic zooming in on the brain, dramatic lighting. The music instrumental, gritty. An older sound technician or musician or professor, in a sound studio, equipment all around, enunciated KiNo, the name, then we see the brain again. This is followed by KiNo in a room with walls of controls, like the interior of spaceships in the movies. The older man keeps talking, but in Russian, and no subtitles are offered. Next we are on the street, looking with the hand-held camera lens, it is summer; then we are looking down from a second floor to an art gallery and an older man is looking up at us. There is strobe lighting an art opening, lots of people talking, though we never see the actual art.

KiNo appears in black, smiling. Cut to another scene with a band performing, being recorded, electronic instruments and sound equipment all about. KiNo in black with white markings playing a large keyboard piano amidst other band members. Cut back to the people at the art reception smiling, drinking, watching and being watched, the way people are at such events, catching up with friends and acquaintances.

When the older man who has been narrating in Russian is finished, he turns to the camera, to us, and smiles.

Next is a shot, perhaps from a bridge of a yellow taxi, on a road at night. A voice, KiNo's, like from a megaphone or public intercom system, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is New Vague City"… "a leased apartment"…. "please remain dishonest (shots of a street at night, pedestrians, car headlights)…extend your fingers where they don't belong… (young designers fixing what look like paper lanterns in a store window) …and operate in total darkness… thanks for believing the New Vague City publicity machine."

Then we are back at into the concert we saw being set up earlier, and see the audience watching in the darkened room, subtitle: "Performance with Malcolm Cecil (Tonto) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths)." The music is rich, ambient, orchestral, pop, and spacey. All the clips are hand-held, shaky. There is a span of the stage covered with instruments, equipment. Next we are walking through a grey bridge between buildings, KiNo voiceover, …"I instigate things I must document. Remembrance of things past, fast." Subtitle: Eve of full moon - photographer Ian Couch takes our portraits in Central Park" KiNo is in white like a sailor and jumping skipping on the streets, we see him from behind, …"see if we can see… the full moon." Cut to the inside of a moving car, where a man with bushy hair sits. Now in a park, KiNo puts an empty beer bottle in a bin, he is in a jean jacket, then we see a woman, a light, a man carrying a large tripod, and the voiceover: "in the city we don't realize what influence the moon has on us, because we just don't see it…. " A discussion ensues, "what light it is … it's like we just don't see it …. out there." KiNo is in a car, waving to the night city outside the moving window, "but it's the strongest light there is.." Someone says, "only film on a full moon." A woman in the dark park, says in Russian, but subtitled, "… I arrived at the moon …"

They all walk into the dark interior of the park, disappearing in the blackness.

This video depicts a world that is not altogether organized. It is an odd assortment of images of a band on tour.

It seems to say, the only plot is our journey through life, and it is a strange trip.

White Fire on Nik Beat's show in 2000

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:46:27 PST

A reading of White Fire on CIUT FM in Toronto, 2000
on Nik Beat's show.

(The new Blogger does not have an option for podcast enclosures, so I've turned to FeedBurner, which is owned by Google now, but it does not seem to work either. I have hyperlinked the recording but clicking on it will only give you the option to download. Sorry, no idea how to get this to work in a feed. You can listen by clicking in on the post.)

On Retrieving a File from Podbean

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:33:49 PST

Longtime readers of this blog may not have ever seen this side of me, nor have my real life friends. But I can be a wee bit fierce sometimes. I am grateful for the outcome. This is not a review, per say, of this company's practices, but I share the email thread with you so you can see for yourself.

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:53 AM, Brenda Clews wrote to Podbean.com:

Subject: My Files Deleted?

Notes: I uploaded a file in 2009 that appears to be gone. This is very upsetting as the hard drive that file was on is defunct. Podbean had my only copy. Can you retrieve it? http://brendaclews.podbean.com/2009/08/04/white-fire/ I did not know you deleted files. Most sites do not do this - at least without warning. Sorry to be a bother, but I really would like to download that file. Thanks, Brenda

Contact Podbean 9:47 AM (3 hours ago) wrote to me:

Brenda, Your files were not lost. They were mis-set after a system move. If the files are important to you, you are recommended to use one of our paid plans . Should there be any further question, please feel free to contact us. Have a nice day.

Podbean Team www.podbean.com

To get latest system status update, please follow us on Twitter @podbean_com

Brenda Clews 10:01 AM (3 hours ago) to Contact:

I am shocked. You didn't even *inform* me that my files were deleted! A "paid" plan will get my file back??? Wow. Ok, I am blogging this experience and posting on Facebook and Google+ and everywhere else I can find. I'll just relate my experience which = bad reviews.This is not a good way to treat people who try your site out. Wish I'd never gone near it. And would like to warn others who might consider your site. It's NOT worth it.

Contact Podbean 12:24 PM (1 hour ago) to me:

What ? We restored your account and you gonna to bad-mouth us.

Brenda Clews ✆ 1:42 PM (6 minutes ago) to Contact:

I am so glad and very grateful!

Now that the broadcast is downloaded, you can delete it if you wish. I use a Google Sites site to host .mp3s now, and there is also the trusty Internet Archives.

I know you guys have to eat, live, and so on, too, and need to charge for your services. Only it's not so good to remove a 'freebie's' file without informing them, and then to ask for payment for them to get it back.

But... eh, that's business for you.

Thank you,
Brenda

_

Yes, I got my file back, for which I am most grateful. But I did not like having to let the tigress out to snarl and gnarl at them to get them to behave with a modicum of business ethic! There is not a word of this in their FAQ, or anywhere else on the site that I was able to find before I initially contacted them.

Not a side I normally exhibit, and most people who know me don't know how I can bare my teeth when necessary. Ok. I lost it.

And I don't think this has happened in at least 7 years - when I had to deal with the moving company that transported my household goods from Vancouver to Toronto and offered storage in a warehouse in an outer suburb for $200./month and then more than doubled it to $450./month when my stuff got to Toronto. They could not legally throw my goods out because I had paid them a couple of thousand dollars. I refused to pay for the storage, many cross calls ensued, and when I called about 8 months later, they relented, and finally honoured their original quoted price and let me retrieve my goods before they had even received the bank draft (brothers and a son are awfully handy to have in times like these - we went and moved everything to another downtown storage place in an afternoon).

Sometimes, you just have to let your tigress out. :)

Painting from the Imagination

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:28:40 PST

For me, painting is always connecting the inside to the outside. But I discovered a very strange thing a few years ago - that I could draw from my imagination and the figures and images were very like the ones I draw from life. This rather freaked me out, as you can imagine. Now I try to trust 'dreaming with the eyes open while holding a paint brush' ... as a valid process to creating that conduit between the world and whatever happens in the inner mind with its strange and beautiful lunacies.

On Acupuncture, and levitation...

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:06:56 PST

Susan Munro gave me an incredible acupuncture treatment last night. Tendonitis in my wrist... worn a brace for a month now. During the treatment, with acupuncture needles in my ankles and wrist and hands, in a darkened room, under her healing hands, my wrist felt like floating upwards, and I didn't resist.

When my forearm levitated it felt like blue sky or summer breeze, very gentle... it was as if the energy in the chakras in her hands pulled my wrist up so that the healing energy could surround it fully and completely... never had anything like that happen before, but it was effortless, could have kept my hand in the air for hours... and when I sensed that the treatment was over in the energy of her hands, I allowed my wrist to float down to the small pillow like a feather slowly falling.

"But, Susan," I said afterwards, "Can you levitate my whole body?" I'd sure like to know what floating in the air feels like!!! :) Haha, "No," she said, "No-one has ever levitated in my healings, or had their arm levitate."

Sigh. I still think it's worth a try!

Susan is a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Chinese Herbalist, Acupuncturist, Reiki Master and Esoteric Healer (and sometimes Saint). Oh, and a poet too!

fleurs, la mort, le bouffon...

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:34:44 PST

fleurs, la mort, le bouffon..., 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.

Another page in the story of my challenge with black.

...at the edge of the world where flowers drop their petals...

What can I say, fleurs, la mort, le bouffon...

Papytroll Michel (on Facebook) wrote: "Que survivent les fleurs;un leger répit avant de mourrir. Un beau contraste couleurs chaudes/froides et noir/blanc. That survive flowers; a leger respite before of dying. A beautiful contrast warm / cold colors and black / white."

"Papytroll Michel," I responded, "you write poetry, beautiful. And, yes, so close to reality. You have no idea."

Then he came back and wrote another comment: "J'adore aussi le graphisme et le coup de pinceau incisif de ce personnage très empathique. Le trait noir rehausse l'expression et les volumes.J'aurai les moyens financiers, je te le commanderai.J'ai tenu une galerie d'art associative dans les années 1990 à Lyon(sud est france) et visité plus de 300 artistes en 2 ans (verrier-tapissier-céramiste-sculpteur-peintre-plasticien) pour mes émissions radiophoniques sur l'art.De beaux souvenirs me reviennent quand je parcours des oeuvres. J'en présente régulièrement dans mes articles sur ce site. Continues à me séduire, Brenda.

[He translates, or through Google translate, to leave his messages in English also] I also like the graphics(handwritting) and the incisive bow of this very empathic character. The black line(feature) heightens the expression and the volumes.

I shall have financial means, I shall command (order) it you. I held an associative art gallery in the 1990s in Lyon (the South is France) and visited more than 300 artists in 2 years (verrier-tapissier-céramiste-sculpteur-p eintre-plastics technician) for my radio programs on the art. Beautiful memories (souvenirs) return to me when I cross (go through) works. I present it regularly in my articles on this site. Continues to seduce me, Brenda."

VidPoFilm's January 2012 GROUP SHOW is live!

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:24:46 PST

VidPoFilm's January 2012 GROUP SHOW is live! Some great video/filmpoems were submitted!

Go and watch video/filmpoems by Steven Mccabe, Alastair Cook, Nathaniel Whitcomb, Marc Swoon Bildos Neys, Nic Sebastian, Dave Bonta, and Brenda Clews.

The Group Show is open to everyone. The only requirement is that it be a video or film poem. Submit your video/filmpoem to be included in the February show here: vidpofilm{at}gmail{dot}com. If you'd like to be included in the monthly reminder email, sent about a week before, send a note to that email address.

http://vidpofilm.blogspot.com/2012/01/group-show-january-2012.html

Three Cocoon-Nests

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:25:38 PST

Three Cocoon-Nests, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.

It is a little Surreal -just think what might hatch from those cocoon-nests... there is something strange about them.

I saw them in my mind last night when I was thinking about what to paint today. What are they? And what will emerge?

While there was a bare tree outside my window, it was too dark to see, and, yes, it's like yesterday's tree, but remember, I'm working in a Moleskine sketchbook, and that page was closed, so I painted from my imagination.

FRIDAY VIDEO/FILM POEM: R.W. Perkins' 'PROFILE'

noreply@blogger.com (Brenda Clews) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:49:41 PST

(from the) Facebook Timeline:

Share and highlight your most memorable posts, photos and life events on your timeline. This is where you can tell your story from beginning, to middle, to now.

Profile:

Start with a snapshot. Your profile begins with a quick summary of who you are, giving friends an easy way to see where you live now, where you're working and more. A collection of recently tagged photos also shows what you've been up to lately.

Share your experiences Give a more complete picture of how you spend your time, including your projects at work, the classes you take and other activities you enjoy (like hiking or reading). You can even include the friends who share your experiences.

Highlight meaningful friendships Your close friends can be just as important as family. Now you can highlight family members and the other key people in your life, like your best friends or coworkers — all right on your profile.

Tweet your day.

Who are you?

PROFILE PROFILE PROFILE

Profile By. R.W. Perkins from R.W. Perkins on YouTube.

General Description

Profile is a stream of consciousness combination of poetry and prose. The visuals of the film were intended to represent the chaos of thought.

Overall Description

There are several stories behind this film. Let's start with the genesis of this film poem. A friend had looked over some of my past written works, then started comparing it to my new films. He made an observation; that much of my older work would be considered stream of consciousness, and that I should try implementing that style in some of my film poems.

As the conversation evolved, this suggestion became more of a challenge; as we then tried to implement rules as to how something stream of consciousness could or would be filmed.

My first thought was the film would have to be written, shot and edited simultaneously, I still like the idea, but for my first attempt I decided it was a little ambitious.

So we decided that the rules would be based mostly around the written word. There were only 2 rules, but they were tough. I had 30 minutes to write, then 30 minutes to do a reading. Whatever I came up with in that hour would be the gospel, no edits or rewrites.

At his website, R.W. Perkins writes, "Both the subject and name of the poem where directly influenced by online social identities, blurbs about one's life creating a narrative of their day. I feel as though many people have begun to reveal themselves through still images and abbreviated phrases, it's almost as though brevity is becoming a new language. This "abbreviated language" in many ways reminds me of poetry. I started thinking of William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just To Say" as a text, a tweet, or blog post. Then I started thinking of the ridiculousness of someone sharing every waking moment of one's life. "Holy shit!" I thought. Sounds a lot like a poet or a writer. What great inspiration for a poem."

R.W. Perkins speaks about the process he underwent making this videopoem, from its inception through to the challenge he gave himself to write and record the poems within a tight timeframe of one hour, changes in the style after watching The Boston Strangler one night, "I was now shooting a 1960-70 action, adventure spy film inspired videopoem,"and the Kerouac and Nietzsche quotes. He says, "I wanted something that felt very gritty and real, like something that you would shoot and post on your facebook page to laugh at with your family and friends. So I started filming and shooting pictures from my iphone. I had just recently fell in love with my new hipstamatic app..."

R.W. Perkins has it all in this video. When I saw it I felt it was a marker of our era. That surely many films of this type will follow, but his was the first. Identity in the twenty-first century is shaped by social media sites. Your life is not contained in your private diaries and photo albums anymore; it's all on-line now. The notion of who we are has never been more global or more revealing.

One's Facebook profile updates and photo albums provide many snapshots of a life. R.W. Perkins has captured that sense of a collided life, a life of snapshots and home videos and snatches of writing. It is a fast-paced life. We describe ourselves to each other. There are millions of us. Facebook is approaching 1/7th of the world's population. It is a social media site that is creating a twenty-first sense of self.

Put it all together and you get, PROFILE. On his website, R.W. Perkins offers his essay on his videopoem, Profiles, as his Profile.

R.W. Perkins "is a filmmaker and poet living and working in Fort Collins, Colorado. A relative newcomer to the independent film scene and literary community, he has worked in video production for five years, producing many television and web commercials as well as many small business documentaries. In late 2009 Perkins created Juteback Productions as a means to showcase some of his more creative endeavors."

Profile is slick, professionally edited - superb timing, a dancing timeline of photos and videos, nothing hand-held here, so a profile that's already public, bare shots of the intimate here and there, a poem of depth that's echoes the Facebook Timeline. Look at the creation and expression of identity; our shifting subjectivities.

Writing this article I went through the videopoem slowly making detailed notes. Rather than summarize, I share with you my notes:

…begins with the speaking lips, moustache and beard appearing… Pink title lettering… then split screens, some present tense, the author/filmmaker, and others from stock footage, older, yet intense… by the end of the introductory title we know we are in the hands of a professional filmmaker, R.W. Perkins comes by this through his day job making commercials and documentaries, but brings those techniques to film poetry. The music has a great beat, tribal ambient. He cuts the video to the music, and it is very effective.

"PROFILE. I am awake," he begins, at the bathroom mirror. There are two images of him, from behind and reflected in the mirror, "prepared and ready for the day, prepared for the onslaught." The dogs get fed on a stage in which the curtains are their lines of stainless steel dog bowls.

The interspersion of Hipstamatic cell phone photos is brilliant. Coloured brightly, they stand out as markers of the photographed and post-processed world we live in.

Coffee is footage from an old diner… and so it goes. The lettering, when it appears, is consistent, and it becomes a striking visual element on par with the video clips and the snappy photos.

The working day is clips of factories from the 1940s: "Laborious: Working Hard OR Hardly Working" and the ubiquitous smiley.

The small pleasures to come of one's life roll up the side like a slowed film series of snapshots colourized in the Hipstamatic app.

He goes forward into the day; then we find out he hasn't left the morning mirror yet. There is a screen where he has a bathroom mirror video in colour, one running in black and white, and two bright red and yellow Hipstamatic iPhone photos. This is the modern Profile, indeed.

"Cut to: PROFILE." And there are a fast series of snapshots, some perhaps of the author/filmmaker, some of found stock footage, fast

"The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to." Friedrich Nietzsche

Cut to. Lots of close-ups of the eyes of the author/filmmaker/

The supermarket makes an appearance in black and white with a change in music, to what I'd call 'skating at the park on friday night' music. Musak.

Yes, we all think about saving .20cents off a brand of yoghurt we know we won't like. This is very real. Songs get stuck in our heads.

Snap back to, PROFILE.

Beach scene, and the ear. Listening. We began with the mouth. Then the mirror.

Tints change on found footage and photos. There is a visual aesthetic that is honed to get your attention. Nothing drags, or is slow. Colours jump out of the screen. We are kept awake throughout.

"I exist as a solitary creature that craves the company and troubles of others." R.W.Perkins.

Then we are with him in his house staring up at the blue sky, "birds, clouds and jet airplanes". He watches neighbours who are out, a jogger, a woman in sun glasses pushing a stroller. "I do not feel small, rather… feel like a giant." And the word giant appears in white lettering in a split screen that has a black and white bird on the left and an unpolarized shot of his neighbourhood on the right.

"Perspective is important here. When compared to a virtual nothing I think you'll find I have finger, nose, toes and eyes, and …I am quite prodigious."

PROFILE

"I am a voyeur. From the comfort of my couch, my dogs at my feet, I can see the neighbours pace in front of their window" and we get terrific split screen of the voyeur in black and white watching as if from behind curtains a jogger… again split screens with different times of the events the author is relating… "She sees me; she is glaring back at me with the suggestive gaze, she is saying, 'her day is going about as well as can be expected… and she is thrilled she looks so good in her new sun glasses." they are in their homes and the jet airplane overhead is full of self-important… but I can't help but wonder-

can they see me?"

PROFILE

"I am awake. I can think, and I exist. And I can see that today I am prodigious. The sky and all that surrounds it will come and go, as I see fit."

PROFILE

PROFILE is a keeper - a defining film poem on our era. This videopoem may spawn a host of videos and films exploring the modern social media identity, in this snappy beat of a style, but R.W.Perkins did it first.