Trailer from Rejoice Now.Mov on Vimeo.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Channel 1 Mostly Final
I don't know why I can never figure out how to upload to youtube correctly. The quality is horrible and the size is totally wrong.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
"...Space is not a container for the body; it does not contain the body as if the body were "in it." Rather bodies are submerged, such that they become the space they inhabit; in taking up space, bodies move through space and are affected by the "where" of that movement. It is through this movement that the surface of spaces as well as bodies take shape."
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Madison St.
So he was dating this girl, or had just started to date this girl and one night after my girlfriend got off of work we decided to go over to this house, the girlfriend's house. we got there at night it was pretty late at night. they lived on the first floor of the house in south side on madison. and there was a porch in the backyard that we spent most of the night on. it had brown wood planks that were kind of dark I guess a small backyard with a garage. The kitchen was kind of plain but I just mostly remember getting drinks and being in the kitchen. We drank some mushroom tea so maybe that kind of affects how I remember that space a little bit. This girl's bedroom didn't really have much of anything on the walls. it was pretty plain it was a white room. I don't' think there was anything on the wall. she had a full or queen size bed with a hideous black metal frame. Later on in the night I kind of freaked out and I started banging the frame against the wall. we had all ended up in bed together. I don't know if it was the drugs that made it not feel okay, but at this point it was real early in the morning. Maybe 4 or 5 am. I remember you know like looking over and flipping out. I grabbed on to the bed frame and hit it against the wall a couple of times. Louder each time. I never looked at the wall after I left but I wonder if I damaged it at all. I got up from the bed, the door was right next to it. It was a pretty small room. I slammed the door a couple of times and I walked through the living room. I guess I kind of paced a round for a couple of minutes. There was a couch against the back wall, a small coffee table and a TV. Normal shit. It was early in the morning and after the night it just looked unfamiliar. I went back out to the porch and I had a cigarette, and I remember looking down the street and seeing my girlfriend's car parked. The most familiar thing on the street. I guess I had never been on that particular street before. It was that early morning light. When we were driving home that morning from this guy's girlfriends house driving back to my apartment, in this early ass morning light which you don't really see unless you are coming home at 6am. So coming home in a different direction than we usually would drive. And seeing all these other building fronts and shit that I recognized but from a different direction and a light I had never seen them in before. At the beginning of the night when we first go there we were sitting at the dining room table. They had been waiting for us for a little while and they had prepared this food. Thick pieces of bread with tomato and cheese on them and something else that I didn't like. There was bench out on the deck in the back that we were all four sitting on for a while. It was summer and dark out.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
MXD
"Suppose we were half white. We would certainly have mixed feelings."
-Julian's Mother, Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
-Julian's Mother, Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
Monday, February 8, 2010
a-geos, getting grounded
Some Video
I'm trying to keep things moving from day to day. Sometimes it is hard to remember where everything is coming from. I will try to use tomorrow as a day for getting grounded.
What does the moving image do for you that poetry cannot?
Eija-Liisa: You can make the inner experience you have with the written word more accessible to others. You can create a fictional world that can be accessed through the senses. For example, you can explore how to communicate what a winter night's light is like by thinking about what response a particular sound might provoke. Or by thinking about how many things can take place in one frame while still allowing the viewer to take in the dialogue. With the moving image, you can take it a step further.
Is that a challenge?
I'm trying to keep things moving from day to day. Sometimes it is hard to remember where everything is coming from. I will try to use tomorrow as a day for getting grounded.
What does the moving image do for you that poetry cannot?
Eija-Liisa: You can make the inner experience you have with the written word more accessible to others. You can create a fictional world that can be accessed through the senses. For example, you can explore how to communicate what a winter night's light is like by thinking about what response a particular sound might provoke. Or by thinking about how many things can take place in one frame while still allowing the viewer to take in the dialogue. With the moving image, you can take it a step further.
Is that a challenge?
Friday, February 5, 2010
What spaces do you hold?
Madison, WI
January 4, 2010
I was at my mother's house. You know it's my mom's house because when you're walking down the street she lives right at the corner of Morrison and Dickenson. When you walk down the street you see this cat on the sidewalk. Just hanging out, walking around, doing all this little cat stuff and being extremely gay and whiney because he's a real faggot cat. And he sits on the sidewalk and meows and meows like he is being horribly mistreated, like no one feeds him, which is not the case. And when you walk up, you have to ring the doorbell because my mom never makes me a copy of the key, which is fine. Either my mom or her housemate, Ricardo, will come answer the door. You get in the little entryway and it smells kind of like cat piss because my mom's cats like to mark their territory. And it smells a little bit like cigarettes because the downstairs neighbor likes to chain smoke and get drunk at 11 am. He's an ex frat boy. You walk into my mom's room, well into my mom's apartment. It smells probably a little bit like weed in there, you know, vap smell from my mom or her housemate, you know either one of them, or me since I'm visiting. You walk in the house and there is this ugly carpet in the hallway and there's cat puke stains on it. My mother's room is the first left. She has this really thick cobalt blue carpet and it is really matted with cat hair and she has these little silver mirrors on the blue wall. Before you get into her room there's this really horrible, horrible painting I did in high school of La Virgen and there's glitter on it to tell you how bad it is, and behind that a series of prints I did, also in high school. There are lots of other spaces in this house. I used to have a room there and now my mom's housemate lives in there. He's a character. He has this really ridiculous bed construction on cinder blocks and wood. He has this weirdly constructed loft bed. He has all these guppies in a tank. You walk into the kitchen and to your immediate left, right here, there are lots of stickers from Ricardo's daughter she likes to put stickers on everything. It kind of smells like cat pee and marijuana still. It's good though, it's really good. There are lots of beautiful bright colors in the living room. She lives in this really tiny little apartment, but it overlooks the lake. In the winter you can look out the window and there are people skating by.
Gonzalez, TX
1997
Eight years old. Family reunion. The way you get there from Houston is you have to drive three of four or five hours south, and I have a really terrible bladder so sometimes there weren't any, like once you get down to the country there's no more like gas stations around. I just remember being younger and having to pop a squat by my mom's car. There were times when I would fall asleep, and wake up to us getting pulled over because my mom was speeding. You keep driving and driving, and things start to get a lot more rural, you see cows, and it becomes drier and you see more mesquite plants. When you get to my grandparents gate you have to move the metal rod so you can move up on to the dirt and gravel path. You drive up the dirt path and the house is in the distance and there's a big pecan tree in front of the house, and a small electric gate around the house to keep out coyotes. The house has a garage next to it where they keep all of the boots. In the background there is a big windmill to pump water. In her backyard there is a swing chair. So if you were walking up the front porch I think there was also a swing chair there too. You walked up these steps and there is a big porch, plenty of room. The year of the family reunion I did a dance to Paula Abdul. I wore my mom's high school drill team, sequined outfit, and I practiced for months. You walk onto the porch and you walk into the house, all wood paneled, and you can tell that the wood underneath the fake carpet kind of squeaked a little. On the left side was my grandmother's big screen television and two couches. Pictures of family members on the walls, little knick-knacks and La Virgen de Guadalupe on the wall and Jesu Cristo and everything like that. Then on your right was the main bedroom, and a bathroom that connected between the other two rooms. You walk forward and there is the kitchen. I remember my grandmother's the smell of tortillas and frijoles on the stove, yellow linoleum floor and cheap furniture that they probably got at a flea market. There were two bedrooms next to the kitchen. The on on the left has two twin beds and my grandmother had this big picture of this girl swinging on a swing and she was wearing a see through dress so you could see her breasts. I would jump on the bed and I would poke at the girl's breasts in the picture. My cousin caught me once and I was really embarrassed by that. That was also the room, my grandmother would always get Avon products and I would always rub her feet or rub her hands with the Avon lotion. She would always get the purple one. As you walk past the kitchen there's another room on the right, and that has a bed. My grandmother taught me how to sew and I would make Barbie clothes by hand in that room. Walk to the next room, I think it was an add-on room, I can't really remember what was in there I think, the washer and dryer maybe. Then you walk past that and you get outside. There was a little herb garden. Sometimes you would go in the back and swing on the swing. I remember singing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song.
January 4, 2010
I was at my mother's house. You know it's my mom's house because when you're walking down the street she lives right at the corner of Morrison and Dickenson. When you walk down the street you see this cat on the sidewalk. Just hanging out, walking around, doing all this little cat stuff and being extremely gay and whiney because he's a real faggot cat. And he sits on the sidewalk and meows and meows like he is being horribly mistreated, like no one feeds him, which is not the case. And when you walk up, you have to ring the doorbell because my mom never makes me a copy of the key, which is fine. Either my mom or her housemate, Ricardo, will come answer the door. You get in the little entryway and it smells kind of like cat piss because my mom's cats like to mark their territory. And it smells a little bit like cigarettes because the downstairs neighbor likes to chain smoke and get drunk at 11 am. He's an ex frat boy. You walk into my mom's room, well into my mom's apartment. It smells probably a little bit like weed in there, you know, vap smell from my mom or her housemate, you know either one of them, or me since I'm visiting. You walk in the house and there is this ugly carpet in the hallway and there's cat puke stains on it. My mother's room is the first left. She has this really thick cobalt blue carpet and it is really matted with cat hair and she has these little silver mirrors on the blue wall. Before you get into her room there's this really horrible, horrible painting I did in high school of La Virgen and there's glitter on it to tell you how bad it is, and behind that a series of prints I did, also in high school. There are lots of other spaces in this house. I used to have a room there and now my mom's housemate lives in there. He's a character. He has this really ridiculous bed construction on cinder blocks and wood. He has this weirdly constructed loft bed. He has all these guppies in a tank. You walk into the kitchen and to your immediate left, right here, there are lots of stickers from Ricardo's daughter she likes to put stickers on everything. It kind of smells like cat pee and marijuana still. It's good though, it's really good. There are lots of beautiful bright colors in the living room. She lives in this really tiny little apartment, but it overlooks the lake. In the winter you can look out the window and there are people skating by.
Gonzalez, TX
1997
Eight years old. Family reunion. The way you get there from Houston is you have to drive three of four or five hours south, and I have a really terrible bladder so sometimes there weren't any, like once you get down to the country there's no more like gas stations around. I just remember being younger and having to pop a squat by my mom's car. There were times when I would fall asleep, and wake up to us getting pulled over because my mom was speeding. You keep driving and driving, and things start to get a lot more rural, you see cows, and it becomes drier and you see more mesquite plants. When you get to my grandparents gate you have to move the metal rod so you can move up on to the dirt and gravel path. You drive up the dirt path and the house is in the distance and there's a big pecan tree in front of the house, and a small electric gate around the house to keep out coyotes. The house has a garage next to it where they keep all of the boots. In the background there is a big windmill to pump water. In her backyard there is a swing chair. So if you were walking up the front porch I think there was also a swing chair there too. You walked up these steps and there is a big porch, plenty of room. The year of the family reunion I did a dance to Paula Abdul. I wore my mom's high school drill team, sequined outfit, and I practiced for months. You walk onto the porch and you walk into the house, all wood paneled, and you can tell that the wood underneath the fake carpet kind of squeaked a little. On the left side was my grandmother's big screen television and two couches. Pictures of family members on the walls, little knick-knacks and La Virgen de Guadalupe on the wall and Jesu Cristo and everything like that. Then on your right was the main bedroom, and a bathroom that connected between the other two rooms. You walk forward and there is the kitchen. I remember my grandmother's the smell of tortillas and frijoles on the stove, yellow linoleum floor and cheap furniture that they probably got at a flea market. There were two bedrooms next to the kitchen. The on on the left has two twin beds and my grandmother had this big picture of this girl swinging on a swing and she was wearing a see through dress so you could see her breasts. I would jump on the bed and I would poke at the girl's breasts in the picture. My cousin caught me once and I was really embarrassed by that. That was also the room, my grandmother would always get Avon products and I would always rub her feet or rub her hands with the Avon lotion. She would always get the purple one. As you walk past the kitchen there's another room on the right, and that has a bed. My grandmother taught me how to sew and I would make Barbie clothes by hand in that room. Walk to the next room, I think it was an add-on room, I can't really remember what was in there I think, the washer and dryer maybe. Then you walk past that and you get outside. There was a little herb garden. Sometimes you would go in the back and swing on the swing. I remember singing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
liquid diamonds
To make up for the bizarre pictures of last post, these are more fitting documents. I think I need to do this when someone can help me and I don't have to hold lights in my mouth.
Also this is just taking things to an entirely different level.
Is there an alien face peeking in the window of the last picture?
Also this is just taking things to an entirely different level.
Is there an alien face peeking in the window of the last picture?
wrk
I'm trying to make a new set and have it not be quite as boxy as the other ones. What was I thinking? I'm definitely trying to roll with what I have/can get. When I feel weird about stuff, I just think of Lauren Kelley and how she is really cool, and interested in creating with few resources. I can't find her stuff anywhere on the internet which is a shame.
Here is a picture that makes no sense.
I finally had the first production meeting. I think that shooting will go smoothly this weekend, but I am starting to get nervous that the screen won't be ready in time. Also, why is this project still untitled?
The "cast" (before I figured out white balance)
and one after
Here is a picture that makes no sense.
I finally had the first production meeting. I think that shooting will go smoothly this weekend, but I am starting to get nervous that the screen won't be ready in time. Also, why is this project still untitled?
The "cast" (before I figured out white balance)
and one after
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Seeing is Believing
“In terms of the constitution of the field, for example, the anxiety is not so much that
the borders will be invaded by inappropriate others (as with traditional disciplines), but that
the borders will themselves be inappropriate.” S. Ahmed
I think about using the genre/aesthetic of sci-fi because of its flexibility as a story telling device. It allows characters and elements to expand or contract at sometimes unintended junctures to serve some useless plot contrivance, other worldly “logic,” or allegorical precision. One thing that I have picked up on from certain works, is the ability for the external circumstances to become reflections/representations of the internal lives of the characters. I started with the prospect of communicating through electro-telepathy. That the characters would be able to freely enter whatever served as the imagination, memory, or emotional space of the others assuming that they knew where to look. A fascination with telepathy, portrayed as the ability to see into the minds of others, their “inner-most” parts, seems somewhat unremarkable with the proliferation of constant mediation; surveillance, reality, vlogs, social networking. Memories, desires, thoughts, are always already at least partially constructed by videos, films, images. What would it mean to “take back the airwaves?” To rethink/remake “sense”? To understand, manipulate, thrive and derive pleasure from affect.
I have chosen to focus on queer/trans-masculine people of color because coming to know myself using variations on these terms, rather than forming an identitarian entrapment has given me access to a queer sort of phenomenology.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
XXXXXXXXX
So I met with the folks who are, for the most part, going to be in front of the camera. I think that everyone is excited, but I still feel a little behind in terms of developing scenes or whatever. I'm trying hard not to push it because I know that I have a couple of ones that I really want to do already. One featuring St. Agatha. I am having the hardest time right now with what I have been thinking about as the "connective tissue" between my conceptual elements and the whole sci-fi metaphor, but I don't feel like I want to abandon it. I am trying to get comfortable with the idea that I can't solve these kinds of problems in one day. Blah blah wah.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Mystery
You can't really see what it is, and it is a long way from being finished. Meeting with the "cast" tomorrow. What am I going to tell them? I'm nervous, not so much about making a good impression, but seeming like I have my shit together enough for them to trust me.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
BOO
The stop motion project was a total failure. I think it was a combination of neglecting to black the tape, and not having a camera that took still images. Really annoying.
Optical thermn
I made two of these. I am excited about building more sets. I just need stuff and $$. I'll be pondering a get rich quick scheme all day. I think that I have a lot of the conceptual work down. That you Hira for reminding me of that. I just need to figure out how to get some structure. It has to come.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Labial Cave
It is kind of hard to take a picture of this with my computer camera, but I built another of the miniature sets today. I definitely still need to make a couple more, and am feeling pretty excited to do so. I think that this one came out really well even though Knox is right, the box shape is a little awkward.
I also finally finished revising my DART application even though it is not due until like Feb. 25 or something. How will getting money in March even help me at all? Especially since they only pay you if you have receipts. Also, maybe I am just really incompetent, but I cannot get my camera to record?
One.day.at.a.time.
I also finally finished revising my DART application even though it is not due until like Feb. 25 or something. How will getting money in March even help me at all? Especially since they only pay you if you have receipts. Also, maybe I am just really incompetent, but I cannot get my camera to record?
One.day.at.a.time.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Pacing
"I am conveying stories about my personal experience based on other people’s stories. It is as though I am channeling community stories or collective experience-it is mine but it also belongs to other people and I can filter it through my creative lens."
-Pepón Osorio (La Bicicleta, above)
So I know that I still have so much to do, and I am continually going back and forth between feeling like I have absolutely nothing and trying to trust in "the process." I kind of feel lost about the best way to move forward right now, and I don't know if I actually have a reasonable schedule to work with. I haven't even really started shooting yet, I lost a camera that had a lot of stuff on it, and I am relying more on other people when I haven't even done that much yet. I really need to get moving on stuff, but wheeerreee/whaaaat. I keep losing either motivation or inspiration. They don't seem to be coming together much. I don't have any actors, no leads what so ever, and I don't know if it is because I actually prefer it to not be strangers or if I am just delusional? I feel like I am the only person with no footage right now, and I don't know why that is. Trying to stay positive and focus. I learned how to use InDesign. Ugh. I think I need to just write all my ideas down, even though I have been putting this off because I feel self-conscious about not doing something strictly "academic."
I just need to get over the privilege to be so languishy. Tomorrow I finally pick up a camera, and hopefully it will flow.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
DLM
What do I really need to do to move forward with this project? Conceptual groundwork has been laid (I think), a more cogent description of what kinds of visuals/scenes/scenarios. There are a couple of things/images that I am drawn to right now, but I don't know for sure if they go with this particular project. I need to figure out what the future will look like. Concrete to do for Monday:
-contact QPOCalypse Western Mass
-begin compiling background footage/mostly abstract and color, the bottom of three layers (ugh I lost a camera!)
-start a list of locations to make/shoot.
It is hard to work without knowing exactly how many things are going to work together, who, where. So many questions, but luckily I don't feel overwhelmed yet. Work week begins soon.
Friday, January 15, 2010
TGIF
Today I picked up the wood for the screen which is going to be huge 8'x6'. Other than that I haven't accomplished a whole lot, materially or conceptually. The ideas for the characters are beginnign to bleed into one another. I'm hopeful that I will be able to put together something more amorphous and abstract then what I have done in the past. I'm really looking forward to having the screen to experiment with, and coming to terms with the fact that I won't have the imaginary actors that I thought would suddenly materialize. Apparently yesterday was a solar eclipse? I read over Magnetic North today, this book created for a Canadian experimental video show, and it was really uninspiring because video doesn't really work well with books, and it reminded me that there is such a lack of access!
Anyway one of the “characters” who are all melding into each other anyway, I guess if I thought about it that would have been obvious from the beginning, is going to be loosely based on Reed Erickson. He was a trans man who ran a successful lead smelting business or something, but then got involved in all sorts of new age stuff, built the “Love Joy Palace” in Mexico and had a pet leopard named Henry. Most of his biographers are interested in his philanthropy, but I'm more into his bizarre opulence. I think another character will be kind of bratty like Kim Deal.
I am starting to realize that most of this thought work is just preparing me emotionally/mentally and won't necessarily be readable on screen. Except for the jaguar.
Anyway one of the “characters” who are all melding into each other anyway, I guess if I thought about it that would have been obvious from the beginning, is going to be loosely based on Reed Erickson. He was a trans man who ran a successful lead smelting business or something, but then got involved in all sorts of new age stuff, built the “Love Joy Palace” in Mexico and had a pet leopard named Henry. Most of his biographers are interested in his philanthropy, but I'm more into his bizarre opulence. I think another character will be kind of bratty like Kim Deal.
I am starting to realize that most of this thought work is just preparing me emotionally/mentally and won't necessarily be readable on screen. Except for the jaguar.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
“Paradoxically, science fiction is rarely about time. And it is almost never about space. It takes both as a given, infinitely extendable categories, pictured as almost wholly under human control-- and thus, almost wholly unproblematic, even invisible. (It is often about what you can find in them-the specifics of history-but that is something else.) What science fiction often is about is scale, and it uses that infinite fields of time and space to reimagine the past as well as the future.”
-Samuel R. Delany
Last night/today was semi-productive. I finally made the weird crystal enclosure I have been dreaming about. I am not even sure what it is quite for yet. One thing that I have been going back and forth on how to make is the “Oracle/orifice,” and I think the crystal is some kind of communication device. I promised myself that I would, as R. Crumb says, reveal things to myself. The oracle is hard to explain right now, but it has to do with realizing fantasy as integral to psychic development. I was watching Chris Marker's San Soleil which I had never seen before, and I really liked it. “I've been around the world several times now, and now only banality still interests me.” That's what his narrator was interested in, but that's not what mine is looking for. I can tell that this narrator is starting to take voice, even now. You are reading it.
I met with DN who is doing the sound compositions and he always asks me what I will be shooting, and,of course, I can never be straightforward. “Oh just some gay sex and other stuff.” I also met with Brian, who is helping with electronics. He'll be programming an Arduino to control 24 LEDs to blink alternately, and at different levels of brightness. I'll be using the LEDs to construct a light box to illuminate photo transfers.
Sans Soleil
The idea is to simulate the look of film, but without the same kind of movement. I think that Marker uses taxidermied animals as a metaphor for film and its manipulations of time; stuck and mysterious. His favorite animals are cats and owls, and his first name is actually Christian.
Still no actors.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
COLOR
I have been trying to work with the idea of visual and (pop) cultural run-off, what that would look like and how it shapes our internal lives. For the installation I was originally thinking that I wanted to include a lot of this run-off, detritus, playing with the idea of substituting object for memory, but recently I have been wanting to pare things down a lot more. I want to paint the walls of the gallery light, light teal. I also want the space to be really brightly illuminated with a light blue light. Like Carlos Cruz-Diez´s Cromosaturación.
It will almost be like living inside of a TV in outer space. Maybe I am getting too far ahead. I still have a lot of work to do (by that I mean start) the script and storyboard. I am also having a really hard time finding people that I want to be in it.
Monday, January 11, 2010
"I think that for many of us in childhood the ability to attach intently to a few cultural objects, objects of high culture or popular culture or both, objects whose meaning seemed mysterious, excessive, or oblique in relation to those codes most readily available to us, became a prime resource for survival. We needed for there to be sites where the meaning didn't line up tidily with each other, and we learned to invest those sites with fascination and love."
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick "Queer and Now"
I think that making this video is becoming more and more important to me as I look into the parts of it that I sometimes don't want to think about, don't want to put on paper, and really don't want other people to see. It is about finding the magical connection that queer people, not all of them, share between each other, because our insides are sometimes made to work differently. When I think about making a video with three characters, I know that for right now, they will all be different parts of me. When I talk about a magical connection I mean it in the dirtiest of ways too. Like to know what it means to be looked at like that, a hard glare flicked your way. And we know the angles to hold our heads sometimes when we are too tired. So there are lots of bad things that we learn to do to make up for it, and there is a special kind of vision in that. My video will be about the tools that we use, and the memories that we hold on to/make up to re-invent sense. Another thing that keeps getting brought up is pleasure, and how its being annihilated by “the world” but it doesn't want to be. What to do about that?
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