On the enjoyment of reading

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"It lodges statements in the space of a shape and makes the moves say what the film represents….Thus the calligram aspires playfully to efface the oldest oppositions of our alphabetical civilization: to show and to name; to shape and to say; to reproduce and to articulate; to imitate and to signify; to look and to read."

Pondering on the difficulties of language, Sam Renseiw compiled some basic signmove footage, at arm's length, feeding time; View the communication attempt by clicking here or follow the indications by mousing in above.(patafilm # 345, 00'54'', 4.6 MB, Quicktime/mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

Between recalling and forgetting

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"...The self does not know itself immediately, but only indirectly by the detour of the cultural signs of all sorts which are articulated on the symbolic mediations which always already articulates actions, and, among them, the narratives of everyday life."

While mimesis is a cyclical interpretative process because it is inserted into the passage of cosmological time, Sam Renseiw stopped for a moment for some other recollections. View the encounter in the Beuys like felt space by clicking here or enter trough the opening above.(patafilm # 344, 01'14'', 5.9 MB, Quicktime/mov -Flash version for PC at Blip.tv.)

Footage mash-up

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"Be formless... shapeless like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be like water, my friend..."

Not denying the classical approach, yet having created another blur pattern - probably trapping some moves- Sam Renseiw investigated a slow cadence of motion-repositions within a traditional living-room set-up. Enter by clicking here or kung-fu chop in above. (patafilm # 343, 01'.04'', 5.4 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

On the angel of history

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"A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings so that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned. This storm is what we call progress."

Greatly inspired by the amazing, clear new vision of direct objectivity, Sam Renseiw mashed-up some supplementing footage on the matter(s) of history, art and memory, for internal use only - View the humble homage by clicking here or enter the field of vision by hovering in above. (patafilm # 342, 02'17'', 11.6 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

Abstraction(s) on the nature of spaces

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" What I would like to do is to make you aware that you see and that, by not being able to prejudice the situation, you suddenly become party to an entirely different structure of the state of the real. It's you that does it, not me. So it can't really manifest itself as an idea, or an object, or an event because any of these things becomes distracting and at least in part about itself."

Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees muses Sam Renseiw, reflecting on how questions of object/non-object can be about questions of seeing and not seeing, and of how it is we actually perceive or fail to perceive "things" in their real contexts. Thus introducing a short piece of space footage, didactically linked (bold) text - click here to view or mouse-click in above. (patafilm # 341, 01'00'' 5.1 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

On the extensity of quasi virtual spaces

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"...Homogeneous space and homogeneous time are then neither properties of things nor essential conditions of our faculty of knowing them : they express in an abstract form, the double work of solidification and of division which we effect on the moving continuity of the real in order to obtain there a fulcrum for our action, in order to fix within it starting-points for our operation, in short, to introduce into it real changes...."

While, - in an old fashion romantic way- probing the virtualities of existing architectural spaces and the bodily moves within it, Sam Renseiw framed a short web-cam like moving sequence, complete with Hammond organ sound: A seemingly banal, yet speculative memento on the reversibility of interior and exterior. Click here to enter or mouse-in on the green stripe above. (patafilm # 340, 01'05'', 5.4 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

On stereophonic sound and starlight stills

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" When psychologists talk of recollection as of a fold in a material, as of an impress graven deeper by repetition, they forget that the immense majority of our memories bear upon events and details of our life of which the essence is to have a date, and consequently to be incapable of being repeated. The memories which we acquire voluntarily by repetition are rare and exceptional ".

Remembering that Bergson's speculations on the matter - almost a century old- still are monumental, Sam Renseiw proceeded to capture some short relevant footage from 100 years of film stills, complete with stereophonic sound. View the montage by mousing-in the attic above or click here to hear-see all about it. (patafilm # 339, 00'47'', 4.7 MB, Quicktime/ Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

Definitely not TV

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“...Beautiful as the chance encounter, on an operating table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella.”

Probably as beautiful as the above chance encounter, Sam Renseiw's capture of a short moment of bliss in the incongruous set up of a TV, a quiet bottle rack and a diminutive cute figure, thrills. (On TV, two seemingly look-a-like James Dean and Lois Smith charmingly tease the audience). View the poetic, audio-visual riddle by clicking here or mouse-in on the figurine above. (patafilm # 337,01'33'', 7.8 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

On concrete and abstract matters

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(A) "The word abstract strictly speaking means to separate or withdraw something from something else. In that sense applies to art in which the artist has started with some visible object and abstracted elements from it to arrive at a more or less simplified or schematised form . (B) "Pure artistry... will remain for ever. An Egyptian carving speaks to us today more subtly than it did to its chronological contemporaries; for they judged it with the hampering knowledge of period and personality. But we can judge purely as an expression of the eternal artistry."

Pondering on the Platonic idea of abstraction, Sam Renseiw, inspired by the Abstractor.tv project by Ji Lee and Dean Jansen, created a short, crude, digital transordinary video strip, with faint reminiscences of Kate Moss's dream of Miss X. Click here or mouse in the abstract strip above to view. (patafilm # 334, 00'46'', 2.5 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version at Blip.tv)

On tiptoeing, tramping and blink

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"The essence of intuition or intuitive responses is that they are reached with little apparent effort, and . . . involve little or no conscious deliberation." By this account, intuition—which does not encompass innate instincts or regulation of autonomic processes such as breathing—is a product of associative learning that occurs outside working memory."

Tiptoeing and tramping around various footage, Sam Renseiw, muses about the essence of intuition, remembering Benas Sarka's refined A GuGu steps in a confined space. Pleaseenjoy moving around by clicking here or mouse-tiptoe in above. (patafilm # 333, 02'14'', 10.1 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version at Blip.tv)

Primitive Kino-Eye

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"There seems to be a definite although unintentional correlation between the daily activities of the artist's environment and some inner structure common to all this, as some things cannot be shared. Among them are the pains, pleasures and the images of our remembrance. The worlds to be explored here can bring these things closer to us - but always simply as metaphors, never as a simulacrum..."

Metaphoring on, Sam Renseiw's primitive Kino-Eye recently caught a short moment of transition before a documentary re-screening. View the episode by clicking here or mouse-in to row 7 above. (patafilm # 332, 00'41'', 2.9 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

Pastoral's double concern for the primitive

"[Our civilization has so screened and sheltered us that it isn't practicable to experience sufficient thrills at firsthand. So we have to experience them artificially, and the screen is the best medium for this.]"

Attempting to force the video-graphic image in a direction that caries it from an image of caricature towards that of the pataphysical visionary, Sam Renseiw experimented with compiled, chosen footage blurs from film masterpieces. View the coloured mash-up by clicking here or enter the blurred scene by mouse-clicking in above. (patafilm # 330, 01'11'', 5.5 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Streaming Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

On the essence of things in birdcage

" Pleased as porridge to hear of your recent ornithological pursuits, and hope to nest in your new orifice. Birdhouse: is that a Hitchcock thang, a Charlie Parker thang, a Lester Bangs riffing on Charlie Parker thang, or just some embarrasing Dada mask that you pull out to amuse yourself at lame parties? On the other hand, which is actually my right foot, why work so hard to make it signify when all it needs is an elemental beat, a conversant rhythm, and Maceo to take it to the bridge? I'll be the prowling cat at your birdhouse as long as you stay on the one and refuse to turn Jackson Pollock's soiled dropcloths into the latest raging fashion accessories. Rhythm now, form and meaning will take their shape when they're damn well ready."

Reflecting upon that most elusive question of what Art might be, Sam Renseiw, acting as amateur ornithologist, examines the subject in the closed confines of a bird cage. View the slow quicktime fluttering by clicking here, or branch in above. (patafilm # 330, 01'45'', 8.9 MB. Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

The fixed ekkyklema

"Machinery helps make the experience magical for the audience. The ancient Greeks used the mechane, a simple crane, to carry an actor down from above as well as the ekkyklema, a wagon entering from the skene, to show a tableau of the dead. Medieval theatre artists/engineers used several types of machines to manipulate the actors and for special effects. Perhaps one of the most intriguing machines to move actors was the treadmill, specifically made for the production of Ben Hur."

Not quite in the Ben Hur range, but still a moving tableau mused Sam Renseiw while capturing treadmill running footage from the middle of a busy urban bicycle lane. View the cyclic nature vivante by clicking here or enter the sidewalk above. ( patafailm # 329, 02'17'', 10.8 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Streaming Flash version for PC available at Blip.tv)

On intimacy, domicile and staircases

"It is evident that the characteristics of the Oneiric house are culturally conditional but, on the other hand, the image seems to reflect universal constants of the human mind. Modern architecture has forcefully attempted to avoid or eliminate this oneiric image. Consequently, it is not surprising that Modern Man's rejection of history has been accompanied by the rejection of psychic memory attached to primal images. The obsession with newness, the non-traditional and the unforeseen has wiped away the image of the house from our soul."

Speculating on the ability to distinguish between what characterises a type of dwelling and what individuates the inhabitants of the dwelling, Sam Renseiw exercised, in one uncut travelling shot. View the climbing footage by cliking here or mouse-jump into the stairs above. ( patafilm # 328, 00'58'', 4.5 MB, Quicktime/Mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)

The ritualised passing by

"The purposes of rituals are varied; they include compliance with religious obligations or ideals, satisfaction of spiritual or emotional needs of the practitioners, strengthening of social bonds, demonstration of respect or submission, stating one's affiliation, obtaining social acceptance or approval for some event — or, sometimes, just for the pleasure of the ritual itself."

Just passing by, on the way to the next daily shores, Sam Renseiw paused for a moment to capture some footage of a ritualised royal event, the second day new year court levee. View the exit by clicking here or mouse-wave to the Rolls above. (patafilm # 327, 01'02'', 4.8 MB, Quicktime/mov - Flash version for PC at Blip.tv)