A sweet scene seen from my window:

I peer down from my bedroom window into next door's garden.  A young girl in a yellow dress calls out to her mother and runs down into the garden and leaves the frame.  The house has just been sold and the family have returned to collect the last of their possessions.  My head pans upwards, to the right, where a line of trees are shedding their yellowed leaves.  The sound of blustering winds and children playing becomes foregrounded.

Agnés Varda, inner mental spaces & inarticulacy

Recently I’ve been looking at Agnes Varda’s installation Une Cabane de Cinema: a humble shack-like structure constructed of 35mm film (strips).  It’s an installation that plays with tensions between public and private spaces in that she used a typical domestic form to invite spectators to literally step inside her inner mental space and interpret her films and dreams through their embodiment of senses and memory.  The cabane is a simple space that has the potential to hold ideas, reverie, creative processes, the living of a life.  The physical and imagined spaces captured in Varda’s films are held together by the cabane structure: the house holds the archive, distils the vastness of time into unison. 

Film was a deeply personal medium for Varda because she used it to explore her creative instincts and to find connection with her subjects.  Varda’s cabane is an extension of this search for connection.  Within the cabane, the viewer is allowed to recognise something of their own creativity in Varda's inner mental space; to find connection with it.  The cabane’s intimate atmosphere is accentuated by the softened light filtered through the greyed negative strips; a counterpoint to the impersonal, public space-denoting gallery lighting.  The material’s transparency indicates Varda’s desire to connect with the external world, and that her inner mental space sought collaboration with others.  

I’m interested in attempts to overcome the tensions between an inner mental space and the external world.  It’s so difficult to express ideas and feelings that have only ever ruminated inside an internal space.  I’ve realised that communicative language makes it almost impossible for another person to truly empathise with what another feels inside: language is limited.  I struggle to formulate my ideas in writing, there’s always a quality that I sense is missing on the page in my ambivalent search for words.  I think I’m drawn to film and architecture because good examples of both contain atmospheres or spaces that invite you to experience what someone else sees and feels.  They are shared inner mental spaces that are inarticulate with ideas, references and experiences. 

This quote sums it up: 'Imagine... all these gestures hung in time & logic & human experience: all about inarticulacy stretching towards communication.'  John BERGER 

Varda's 'Un Cabane de Cinéma'
on the cover of a book on her work.

The Souvenir Part II

There's a scene about half-way through Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir Part II that I can't get out of my mind.  Julie, in the midst of making her graduate film based on her experience of being in a relationship with an illusory heroin addict, walks through the sound stage that contains her set.  It's a scene that eventually mirrors the divine final act, where Julie's creative voice finally culminates.  The image glows with the warm hue of pine, accentuated by its reflection in glass, and is then darkened as she walks across the black-and-white photography that resembles an exterior.  Layers of materials, fabrication, and memory are revealed.  The extent to which Julie is recreating her memory of the period with Anthony becomes apparent by the exact replication of her London flat (also a replica of Hogg's 1980s flat).  

Another layer emerges: Anthony's voice reiterates discussions that took place in that same flat, and the reconstruction of the flat brings him back to a ghostly life.  The image becomes even more layered with diegetic sounds that we recognise from previous scenes or 'Part I'; a ship's deep horn, the chimes of a Venetian bell tower.  The deep horn sound recurs throughout the film and becomes blurred with the pained grunts heard in Anthony's heroin come-down or Anna Calvi's throbbing lamentation in her song Julie.  The Venetian bells merge with the reverberation of Julie's flourishing creativity.  These sounds echo through the film as though they're heard within the sparse confines of a sound stage, a city, or within the artist's mind; bouncing off layers of creative thought and ideas.  It's never clear what space we're in or looking at, or whether it's a real or imagined space.  

This amalgamation of layered images, sounds and filmic references enthralled me, perhaps because it closely resembles what the inside of my own head looks like: a repository of feelings, images, etc that need an outlet, need to amalgamate.  The scene ends with an image of the reflection of a distant fluorescent square (a recurring image that culminates in the film's glorious final scene) that Julie walks through and out of the image, she's inspired and closer to making her film.  That moment was when I finally breathed out.

Here's another square that contains an image of construction, possibility & creativity.  It's a shell of a construction site that inspired me to film something in it.  Before I could plan anything, the whole site was filled with scaffolding which covered the beautiful colours of the walls and the multi-levelled nature of the floor.  It went from being an open, light-filled space to one that was enclosed and uninviting.

The construction site in question (prior to installation of scaffolding)

Recognising another's longing 

With every street corner that I pass on the long stretch into uni, I meet the eyes of someone in a corner pub or store.  A lone, Hopperesque woman looks out from the window seat of a Flinders Street pub.  A convenience store worker leans against a pile of boxes yet to be unpacked and looks out towards the passing crowd.  I move further along the street to the next intersection and make eye-contact with a young man waiting with a suitcase in a hotel lobby... 

I recognise their pause, their waiting for something... as I go to university and wait for my life to begin.

Recording a feeling of insularity 

Sometimes I can be sitting at my desk and be peering into my laptop, feeling uninspired and muddled, as I work on design-based assignments.  

Sometimes, when I'm feeling uninspired, I can take a step back and look at my desk from a distance and suddenly have a sense of clarity and perspective. 

This was my desk over summer, when I was idle and just reading for pleasure:

Vision

"Why are you closing your eyes?" he asks me at the cinema during the film.  "Why are you closing your eyes?" he asks me as we lie side-by-side on the bed. 

Closed curtains

I like taking the train home at night as it means I don't have to see the same view that I saw out the window during the morning's in-bound journey.  It's just a blackened view instead, as though my eyes are closed.  The fluorescent lighting of the train carriage is an extended flash through the dark.  

Rejection 

Here's a still image from Charlotte, a 16mm film by Steve McQueen.  I first saw it projected in a little room at the 'Biography of Daphne' exhibition at ACCA last year.  In a direct homage to Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou, the red-filtered camera focuses on a close-up of Charlotte Rampling's eye as someone else's finger continually probes it, forcing her to close her eye.  I recall it being a moving experience to have such an intimate encounter with another's eye projected as a small red square against the gallery wall.  The delicacy of it all made me stay in the room with the work for multiple durations. 

Steve McQueen, 

Charlotte, 16mm, 2004    

Here are some snippets of writing, a bit like a shot-list of images.  I find writing at this length an easy way to maintain a daily writing practice.  The editing page of this blog contains a whole collection of these snippets... layered feelings of desire, reverie, longing and anticipation.  

Waiting with a disparate group of people at city pedestrian lights.  Some with headphones on, with backpacks, clutching handbags; all waiting and looking forward as cars aggressively turn the corner.  Later that day while planning an essay, I read this quote from post-modern architect Aldo Rossi: 'One can say that the city itself is the collective memory of its people, and like memory, it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus of the collective memory.'

·

The sound of machinery reverberating down city streets.  Deep ramming noises repeated at perfect intervals.  

·

As I walk past the RMIT Design Hub, my eyes follow a continuous line of Sean Godsell’s opaque glass circles.  Then, in the university library, my eyes follow a horizontal line of books as I try to find a specific cataloguing number. 

·

Workmen passing long panes of timber along to each other, putting something together, and partially obscuring my view of buildings and streets.  My experience of the street is alike looking at a view in the gaps between the slats of Venetian blinds; framed by construction.

·

A construction site I’ve been keeping my eye on, which was once bright and empty a few weeks ago, and revealed the remains of old pastel-coloured walls, is now filled with steel scaffolding.  Spotlights project austere light over the dense silver jungle of scaffolded shapes.  It's like a gallery with rotating exhibitions.

·

Listening to music with a consistent rhythm on my headphones.  The pace of my walk intuitively matches this rhythm. Sunlight streaming through tree branches casts a quick succession of flashing light, also matching the rhythm of the music, momentarily blurring my vision.

·

On my way home, as I wait for the bus, I look out for it by way of the reflection in the glass sides of the bus shelter.  Layers of reflections emerge: the trunk of an elm gives ‘birth’ to an oncoming Volkswagen, low autumn light intensifies an endless stream of students, also superimposed, as they pass-by like pilgrims.  As I wait, I self consciously notice my own reflection in the tinted glass of a shopfront window across the road.  The low-hanging branches of the elm slightly obscures my face. 

Enclosure & imminent openings 

I’ve been intrigued by these windows at home and wanted to express an idea of ‘enclosure’ and a feeling of anticipation through them.  They slide open to let in breezes, and I like the thought that they let in varying degrees of airiness.  When the sun is out and depending on the extent to which they are slid open, the frames create interesting shadows across the room.  The sliding mechanism also allows for varied framing of neighbouring things, such as chimneys.  Some of the compositional framing in The Souvenir Part II continues to inspire me.  Hogg frames people around open doors, through slits in walls, and this creates a sense of the young protagonist's gradual expansion; her creativity opening up to the world. 

I’ve been thinking of creating a sculpture that replicates these windows on a larger scale, and distils this atmosphere, this memory.  A work that could appear in the gallery, leaning against a wall, or perhaps in the middle of the space, dividing it, used to frame other works, etc. 

Pre-and-post film reveries

Wandering the streets of Melbourne, lost and in a state of isolation.  Long axes appear as though they lead to something greater, but gradually peter out to suburban nothingness.  

Going to the cinema on my own in the gaps between lectures and then afterwards re-entering the real world in a state of reverie.  I'm more attuned to everyday details: someone's hand tucked into a pocket, a woman's slouchy walk.  The busker playing improvised jazz fills every crevice of the street and my thinking.  I hold back tears as I do whenever I hear Handel or J.S Bach played on a keyboard instrument.  I keep hearing the saxophone, piano, harpsichord as I walk away from the cinema and closer to the end of the axis.  Lost and in a state of reverie. 

Here's an image of a dream-like photograph by Rudi Williams, which I saw while walking down Swanston Street.  This series of images depict a city under construction: architectural and civic disruption & transformation, and are presented on scaffolding around one of the city's many excavation sites. This one's near my uni building.  The other day I could hear mechanical sounds of excavation during a class.  The noise was so immense that I could feel the building slightly vibrating. 

Rudi Williams, Vantage Point

In the garden last spring: 

"Is this all there is?"

This evening I finally got the chance to see The Souvenir Part II.  It's been two years since I saw the first part with my mum at the Melbourne International Film Festival (more here).  Things have changed since that first introduction to Joanna Hogg's film, both in my life and in the world.  I've been overseas, started university, met new people and entered a relationship; all of the things you generally do at the age of 22.  While my experience of these things have been almost dream-like and I've often been unsure of where they'll go, they have framed my thinking and ultimately given me a greater sense of personal and artistic confidence.  

Two years ago I related heavily to Hogg's Julie; a diffident young woman trying to find her voice in a world full of domineering personalities.  In the second part, Julie gains her artistic voice through using her experiences to underpin her work, and in turn, make sense of her mysterious deceased partner, Anthony; a heroin addict.  This film has a different tone to the first.  It fuses Hogg's typical semi-documentary style with Cocteau-like fantasy, is brighter, and its locations expand beyond Julie's Knightsbridge flat.  This corresponds to the momentum of Julie's artistic progression.  She's more outward looking and "gathering experience and information" to make the work that she wants to make.  This time around, alongside my mum again, I felt more alike the current Julie.  I'm more weighted by life and experience, and therefore also have greater insight and confidence to inject into my work. 

This is a brief summation of my initial thoughts after seeing the film.  I'll come back to this to inform a more elaborate review of my experience of this film.  I found The Souvenir Part II an extremely inspiring and life-affirming work, and it will be something that I'll take under my arm as an influence as I venture into future experiences and artistic ambitions.  

In other news, this Nizo Super 8 camera arrived in the post the other day.  I think it might need some restoration, but I look forward to using it to produce images/ dreams.  Funnily enough, I noticed that Julie uses this same camera model in 'Part II'.  I think it was a popular camera among artist filmmakers during the 80s as I found out about the Nizo camera through reading Derek Jarman's diaries. 

'Silence, simplicity, humility... the only proper state for the artist as for the human being.'  Patrick WHITE

Trying to finish some writing for this blog on Federation Square, although I've run out of words and direction.  Found this perfect quote by Patrick White from his book The Vivisector.  Sometimes it's easier just to leave an impactful quote- to summarise a thought more simply than perhaps an essay can.

Federation Square is a multi-layered but ultimately disjointed gesture of public architecture, and I think that's the main thing people conjure when arguing against its visual appearance and atmosphere.  It's definitely challenging and subversive; an example of where post-modern architecture goes against the grain of perceived notions of beauty.  Where a public square should be a utopian place that 'federates' people and allows them to gather in unity, interestingly, Fed Square has done the opposite and polarised opinion.

It's hard to pinpoint some of my arguments against the Square, because I admire how it resists public expectations and sort of subsequently questions the nationalism of public squares.  Although I feel as though it's often misunderstood and under utilised for this reason, which is a great shame. 

Ghostly self portrait disappearing into the depth of the Square.

Memoria

Memoria is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's strongest distillation of feeling, emotion and atmosphere.  I left the cinema in a state of exaltation; my senses heightened, my mind alive and thinking.  On my walk home, my attention was attuned to new things in the city.  I was standing amongst a crowd of flash mob dancers in Federation Square, watching how they engaged with the public space.  Everyday sounds, such as the pedestrian lights, ticked with greater clarity.  The voyage down the escalators and into the underground station felt like I was getting close to the core of the earth (reference to the tunnel boring depicted in the film).  

Nathaniel Dorsky describes the "post-film experience" in his Devotional Cinema as something that either disturbs you or uplifts you.  It changes the way you interact with the world and can defamiliarise the everyday.  For me, Apichatpong's films allow the viewer to tap into an uplifting 'devotion'; to easily enter a dream-like mental space during, but also particularly after the film.

Memoria was made in collaboration with Tilda Swinton, and captures her in a foreign city in a state of inarticulacy and isolation.  This physical and psychological isolation is caused in part by a loud bang that is only audible to her and difficult to explain to others.  I connected with this sense of being isolated by having something inside your head that you cannot truly communicate.  It's a metaphor for making art and film; trying to articulate personal ideas and share them with others in the hope that there will be someone else in the world who connects with it too.  Looking for shared experiences, by way of tuning into the sounds around you, in a society that one feels alienated by, where one hasn't found their tribe.  In Memoria, the bang is also used as a metaphor for the ongoing trauma of state violence in Colombia.  The most touching moment of the film is when this connection finally occurs between Swinton and another bereaved man.  An intensely powerful soundscape replaces dialogue.  The connection is inarticulate and deeply empathic.

In what is a typical Apichatpong trope, all of these layers are juxtaposed with images of natural beauty.  The sublime countryside of Bogota, Colombia is implicated by the collective trauma of its society.  The landscape is a receptacle for feeling, and its memory can be drawn out to great emotional affect. 

I found that this quote from Robert Bresson's Notes on the Cinematograph spoke quite directly to Apichatpong's work: 'Your film should have the beauty, or the sadness, or what have you, that one finds in a town, in a countryside, in a house, and not the beauty, sadness, etc. that one finds in the photograph of a town, countryside, or house.'  Robert BRESSON

 

Image from the book on the making of the film, Memoria, by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. 
Fireflies Press, 2021. 

Lonely reverberations

Melbourne's city streets hum with the sound of construction and machinery.  Movement is constantly diverted by workers digging into the footpath.  Cranes above overshadow pedestrians, and layers of scaffolding obscure buildings.  Anti-vaccination protesters dominate these streets now, passers-by cough in your direction, cops are visible on most street corners, and late-night revellers vomit into gutters.  

I often feel a strong sense of alienation and anxiety in this city; by the streets, sounds, and culture. 

Little Collins Street: indentations of things concealed and obfuscated behind a tarpaulin.  Repressed emotions, thoughts, loneliness in the city. 

Hope

Still images from the garden during Spring 2021.  Looking for colour, shadow and light variations.  Hopefully they make you feel hopeful during these final days of lockdown. 

Layers of reflection from lockdown

I'm quite drawn to the layers in these images: glass, timber frame, refracted light, foliage, self portrait and differing building styles/eras coming into question through their reflection in a modern-designed building.  It made me excited to see the house from a different angle as I've been confined to the same views for so long now. Hopefully these images they're a contrast to the 'sameness' of the recent images I've published here. 

 In today's light: 

Framing the staircase

Condensing space 

I love making architectural models.  I feel like the only way I can think logically, but also imaginatively, about space and atmosphere, is to condense it on a smaller scale.  

I'd love to make model reconstructions of all of the memorable spaces I've inhabited, as I imagine them in my head: my bedroom, childhood house, the classrooms where I'd have philosophy and art classes in high school, bookshops, cinemas, the inside of an airplane going to London.  Enclosed spaces of solitude and daydream... where I've dreamt of the external world and where I've been most creative.  I like the thought that the models would condense and contain all of the feelings and thoughts experienced within these dream spaces.

This a W.I.P model for a current design project: a continuous undulating roof and opaque curved walls form a corridor and guide linear movement out into the landscape.  It's a space that's intended to act as a  corridor to access inspiration and connection for those living within the oppressive and capital-driven confines of a suburban housing development.

The anticipation of moving towards something; either the camera lens or the mystery of what might lie at the end of a corridor

Additional images to accompany the previous post:

Stills from footage

In addition to the previous post, I'm also thinking about promenades, arcades, laneways, corridors and tree-lined paths as framing devices for this same project.  Here are some stills from footage I took to think through these linear, horizontal spaces.  

Working on a new project looking at contrasting weights and forms; weight and weightlessness.  These pillars gently support (in a Glenn Murcutt-inspired 'to touch the earth gently' way) an undulating roof that ascends over the landscape and appears almost like a bridge over the Yarra. 

I finally went searching for this house that I've been admiring from a far distance.  It's perched on an escarpment that leads down to a creek and is partially hidden behind clusters of spindly eucalyptus.  The house curves around, imitating the countours of the hill and drawing reflections of the trees into its panoramic glass facade.  The modernist influenced exposed truss-like steel structure and the terracotta-coloured strips embellished across the top and bottom initially reminded me of Richard Rogers's houses. 

There doesn't seem to be any information on the house or architect online, so I'm not sure of its provenance.  This is also as close to it as I could get; slightly closer, by the embankment looking up through the trees. 

Concealed, diffused, revealed

One square of clear vision of the view out through my bedroom window and another of hazy and subdued light through opaque glass. 

Passionate purple flowers are subjected to gradual alterations of light as I work at my desk and try to make sense of things.  There are changes in colour and perception, as the desk lamp moves, and as I try to overcome difficult emotions, thoughts and tasks.

                                         

                        shifting                 

                                         

                    light                     

                    purple, green, white 

intensifying and coming to a desirable conclusion.                     

                                         

And then finally there is relief as things do in fact come together, deadlines are met, etc. 

Stills of various views from out the windows of my house.  Looking out for ideas, longing for connection and trying to contain my grief after receiving dire news regarding my dog's health.