Monday, 25 February 2013
Friday, 22 February 2013
Walking and Language
The first line of this song is "Savannah scatters and the seabird sings".But the intonation of his voice makes it sound different.
This is an example of how walking can reveal things about the natural world in a different way than language can, perhaps in a better way.
Language is a fixed manmade system with it's own rules... it is absolute. This is inappropriate when relating matters of the planet because the planet is entirely relative. Language's ability to communicate is based on the meaning of words.
In this songline we hear the tone and intonation of the words before we deduce a meaning from them...
by noticing this we are experiencing how things other than language itself can communicate or describe something.
Just as the way this line is creating an atmosphere in it's tonal and textural structure, Walking can describe planetary situations in more truthfully and in more dimensions than language can, because of it's ability to make our bodies and minds aware of materiality, texture, pace, mood etc.
This is an example of how walking can reveal things about the natural world in a different way than language can, perhaps in a better way.
Language is a fixed manmade system with it's own rules... it is absolute. This is inappropriate when relating matters of the planet because the planet is entirely relative. Language's ability to communicate is based on the meaning of words.
In this songline we hear the tone and intonation of the words before we deduce a meaning from them...
by noticing this we are experiencing how things other than language itself can communicate or describe something.
Just as the way this line is creating an atmosphere in it's tonal and textural structure, Walking can describe planetary situations in more truthfully and in more dimensions than language can, because of it's ability to make our bodies and minds aware of materiality, texture, pace, mood etc.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
How to fall asleep
Sometimes when you go to a gig and you realise you've zoned out and you're barely listening to the band anymore, just staring at them and thinking about something completely different. That's what this video is like. It's a random video I found on Youtube of 8 minutes of one rolling shot following a logging road near Ontario. The surroundings and the atmosphere are nice but because it's following the track you know what's going to happen and it's such a familiar motion that you assume everything that's going to happen next. Your perceptions are protected not challenged.
The imagery shows you appreciably beautiful scenery, and the continuity and duration of the shot is perfect for emphasising real-time pace that modern technologically enhanced life forgets. But it's also perfect for accommodating presumptions - you know what's coming. That's exactly the opposite of what walking can actually do for you - if you consciously submit yourself to walking IN nature rather walking ALONG channels made by man, you can discover new angles and features.
Of course walking along paths is equally important because human presence in nature is often helpful as well as undeniable, and walking the paths of other people and other times to and from other places and other people is one of the simplest pleasures, and a good way to humble oneself and disperse egotism - a good attitude to adopt in relation to living with a care of nature. But endless path-following is not a good film editing style if i'm trying to introduce walking as more than a simple transport mode.
The imagery shows you appreciably beautiful scenery, and the continuity and duration of the shot is perfect for emphasising real-time pace that modern technologically enhanced life forgets. But it's also perfect for accommodating presumptions - you know what's coming. That's exactly the opposite of what walking can actually do for you - if you consciously submit yourself to walking IN nature rather walking ALONG channels made by man, you can discover new angles and features.
Of course walking along paths is equally important because human presence in nature is often helpful as well as undeniable, and walking the paths of other people and other times to and from other places and other people is one of the simplest pleasures, and a good way to humble oneself and disperse egotism - a good attitude to adopt in relation to living with a care of nature. But endless path-following is not a good film editing style if i'm trying to introduce walking as more than a simple transport mode.
Monday, 18 February 2013
sequencing style and seemingly random subject matter is ... a walk
Neither this video nor this song intentionally have anything to do with walking, environment, or perception that I am aware of, but the way the video is shot and the subject matter is a style I use and really like because it seems natural and not particularly edited - it feels more like an instinctive succession of sequential remembering of observations, which is how walking takes us back to our own pasts and from that and beyond to other peoples' pasts. With each footstep comes a new thought and as more ground is covered more thoughts are.. one leading to the next, rationally or not.
It is a narrative that doesn't make sense of something but creates a feeling of elegiac attachment to a place... the way we stroll around town or through fields along the same routes day after day, and no matter how long we leave it before we come back, just stepping foot in the same place brings back vivid observations of the past; of things we saw on the path and of things that were unrelated to the path but happening elsewhere those times we used to walk the path.
It is a narrative that doesn't make sense of something but creates a feeling of elegiac attachment to a place... the way we stroll around town or through fields along the same routes day after day, and no matter how long we leave it before we come back, just stepping foot in the same place brings back vivid observations of the past; of things we saw on the path and of things that were unrelated to the path but happening elsewhere those times we used to walk the path.
Monday, 11 February 2013
Saturday, 9 February 2013
Thursday, 7 February 2013
St Leonard's Forest film projected :)
The many screens shift your focus, emphasising the amount and variation of senses and scenes to attune to while walking. The projection into the wooded wall showed the natural growth of wood in the life of a tree, and the manmade appropriation of it.
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