Solitude (zoom remix) (Derek's Poem)
A film response to Derek's poem 'Solitude', using zoom as the medium. 6'58"
As a continuation of Derek and I's explorations, I took his poem 'Solitude' and made a response to it. The poem feels like a deep soul cry, a grappling with self, life, and destiny. I wanted to exacerbate this sense of separation / aloneness - by using the medium of zoom - which is how we are all staying connected these days. But it is also a disembodied / virtual medium, where bodies are at a distance and cannot touch. So I took Derek's voice recording of his poem and recorded my own voice and then zoomed myself a number of times. I wanted to push both the sound and image via tech / internet / zoom - so would use the previous recording on zoom to screen share on the next zoom call. Using the mics on my computers and my speakers to play the sound in the room which created further reverb - until the voices became a cacophony and then eventually totally distorted into a hum, a wave of sound, pulsing. I also did single zoom calls to no-one but myself, and recorded myself speaking Derek's poem from different angles, but all with the sun on my face - this felt like the sun was receiving the call of the poem, listening to it and offering warmth and connection back (so in a sense I was not alone). Everything was recorded on zoom and then I edited the footage. Because the sound was so distorted I was worried about loosing the narrative of the poem, the power of the spoken word. And I didn't want to completely erase Derek's poem - I wanted to respect it in it's entire / pure form! So I threaded the voice recording Derek sent me back into the film - so that actually the poem is both disrupted and distorted and there in it's untouched flow - both.
It was really fun experimenting with the medium of zoom, stretching it as a recording and communicating device. Something about the connectivity the tech provides but also that there is an inherent disconnection there - that it connects separate bodies and spaces through the ether (internet). But to do this all in my home and with myself felt fitting to the poem, which ends with:
'My final wish comes true,
Solitude'
Solitude is what many of us are learning to relate with, navigate, embrace - and with this can come isolation and disconnect. But there is also a deep connection to soul and spirit that comes with solitude - hence the age old tradition of monks going to caves alone for extended periods of time, to deepen their connection to spirit.
Also I liked the 'liveness' of playing with sound reverb and recording - letting it do its thing in the space - bouncing between mics and speakers - and not knowing what it was going to do. I played with the volume control on my speakers because with volume high some really interesting things started to happen, but I was also a bit worried of blowing them - and they're decent speakers! I'd like to explore this further, the distortion of sound and language - stripping it back to sound waves or fundamental hums - and combine this with body gesture - to deconstruct communication.
I like the everyday-ness of using zoom as a creative medium, of being at home in my kitchen, with my dog, Ludo - my washing up / mess there. I like the repetition of empty chairs that build through the zoom calls. I like that suddenly they are all occupied by me at the beginning and end - like a building up and emptying out. Of a wave. Of a poem.
I felt nervous taking someone else's writing and making a response to it (because the nature of this poem was so personal / but also actually human)
- would they like it? would it be respectful? sensitive?
There is something great about giving someone else's work time and space, to let my response to it deepen - to let Derek's poem land in my body.
I feel that there is a cultural pressure or demand to go fast, to keep moving towards a goal, to get somewhere (better than here) - and this fast pace doesn't really allow time and space for responsiveness. To feel into a deeper quality of response, a more attuned response. To slow down, share, listen - 'pay attention to' - is an important act, it strengthens relationships and connectivity. To rush and race and get ahead is a symptom of the cult of individualism/ capitalism/ colonialism/ consumerism - dissociative ways of being or rather, non-being - like we're all in it for ourselves. What happens if we acknowledge if we are absolutely in this together - and perhaps this is really being recognised through this pandemic.
There is a trust between Derek and I to share our art work and to allow each other to have their response. There is permission to play and experiment. We're not working to any contrived outcomes or goal. Although this is our response to the 'Public Realm' module, we are not sure, at this moment in time, who our public is, or who our audience is. I hope the work will reveal this to us as we go along. Our audience may be very small - it may be unknown to us - as in - we may publish our work online, make a 'call', so to speak, and see what happens - in a sense asking: who has time to respond?
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