On the [coming] end of a Language

“Plato, who proposed the theory, seems to have done so in order to rule that the value of Vine art is dubious. Since he considered ordinary material things as themselves mimetic objects, imitations of transcendent forms or structures, even the best video of a bed would be only an “imitation of an imitation.” For Plato, art is neither particularly useful (the video of a bed is no good to sleep on), nor, in the strict sense, true. And Aristotle’s arguments in defence of Vining do not really challenge Plato’s view that all Vines are elaborate trompe l’oeils, and therefore lies. But he does dispute Plato’s idea that Vine art is useless. Lie or no, art has a certain value according to Aristotle because it is a form of therapy. Vine Art is useful, after all, Aristotle counters, medicinally useful in that it arouses and purges dangerous emotions.”

Sam Renseiw, paraphrasing Benjamin, ruminating over the coming demise of Vine, casually compiled some summer Vines. [Vine Compilation # 13, 1.2GB, (!) Mp4, Vimeo.] Expect some more Vine (compilations)during the season break and before the next year on blogposts here. 

On re-collecting and other moves

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod/Pad / direct streaming for PC

“ Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if minutes and quarter-hours appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange voodle form -- it may be called fleeting or eternal -- is in neither case the stuff that life is made of: it is but a short, captured moment, shared by two individual who witnessed its contours, in situ…"

During a recent, short week-end in Paris, Sam Renseiw re-collected, all the while re-miniscing, in memorable company. View a short docu-voodle diptych with glimpses of tables from Aux Fins Gourmets, Tintin's at Oiseau de Paradis and a side chamber in the Chateau de Vincennes donjon's second floor by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 815,04'44'', 104MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features an ultra short moment of slow-motion in Rue Bellechasse. (Lum # 306,"slow-mo- duty-free", 00'31'', 17MB, Quicktime/mov)

On more arcane arcade voodling

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod/Pad / direct streaming for PC

'Why travel?' asks Tomas Espedal in "Tramp", 'Why not just stay at home, in your room, in your house, in the place you like better than any other, your own place. The familiar house, the requisite rooms in which we have gathered the things we need, a good bed, a desk, a whole pile of books. The windows giving on to the old weeping willow and holly hedge, the beautiful lawn, the terrace.."

The first step in any longer journey is always a footstep - the brave or curious act of putting one foot in front of the other and stepping out of the house onto the sidewalk below... the beginning of some stort of footage thus, and one might as well start voodling... As it again happened to me this past year... a time consuming and enjoyable occupation as always...yet still without any fixed goal... The work seems slowly to mutate into something much larger... an arcane visual arcade of sorts, a steadfast, insisting, unassuming visual laboratory, in the midst of the growing deluge of moving images...

Yes, I might as well continue the happy endeavour, in Camus' spirit: "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." The Arcade Project took thirteen years, so that would leave eight more years ahead...

This past year, I had the privilege of retaining a dedicated audience of fellow video artists and vlogger. Thank you to all for your kind comments and encouragement. It does indeed help the work, as well as the inspiration of watching yours. I have particularly enjoyed the exquisite & rare luxury of new video postings from Daniel Liss, Robert Croma, Steven Ball , Jimi Bogdanov, and Philip Sanderson, Rolf Gerslauer just to name a few; A special thanks to Michael Szpakowski from DVblog for his continuous dedicated, inspiring and generous sharing compilation(s) Since last November Philip sublimely re-and fine-tuned many Lumieres for the exquisite Lumiere et Son project, concluding the work in precisely one year. I am still amazed at the fine subtleties infused, in what at first seems just audio-overlays: what happens is some rather profound new soundings, resonating. Regarding soundtracks: also this year I had the opportunity of lending new soundtracks from Gurdonark and Negativesoundinstitute, and many more... And, last not least: I still ove so much to Brittany Shoot and Andreas Haugstrup's fine Lumiere project Manifesto. It keeps me enabled to re-view and capture so many sights that might otherwise have been lost, or never even seen.

To all of you and the many more Patalab friends I might not have mentioned -I do miss you ,though)- a heartfull thank you and the best wishes for a happy, prosperous and fruitful new year ! Click here or on the links above. (patafilm # 806b",happy new 11" , 02'17'',42Mb, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv) Kind regards, Sam Renseiw.

On blind voodler and mermaids

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod/iPad / direct streaming for PC

" The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the beast...The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam-flecks are flung from the sea: of amazing! You behold the foam but not the Sea. We are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water.. [So oft in voodle squabble,/The disputants, I ween,/Rail on in utter ignorance/Of what each other mean,/And prate about a mermaid/Not one of them has seen-in real-]

I the course of a recent fine re-union visit, Sam Renseiw joined the merry crowd for a bout of mermaid spotting; Under the present circumstances, it resulted in a somehow simultaneous scattering of spaces. View the synthesis voodle, combining thesis and antithesis into a titillatingly dialectic moving still by cicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 775,02'39'', 32MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video feature a surprizing gaze on urban shores, with angelus novus view. (lum #275 "bergen funicular" 01'00' 12MB, quicktime/mov)

On the production of new realities

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod/iPhone / direct streaming for PC

"In analogue film, light leaves traces on the sensitive emulsion, imprinting on it permanent shadows. The manipulation of two realities - the superimposition of two stills, both traces of material realities - produces something that is already outside the logic of "realism". Rather than represent reality, it produces a new reality... "

Vaguely remembering the insinuation that the only semiotic system capable of interpreting another semiotic system is to be language, Sam Renseiw realised while editing more finish(ing) footage, that voodling makes interior architecture something other, transforms it into a new item. And that new item is, in itself and apart from the fact to which it is referring, an event, that could also be called a "fact". View the new interior artefact by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 698, 03'28'', 22MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video takes a deep focused view on framing moving objects & persons on an island. (lum # 209, "silja, passing", 01'00'', 7MB, Quicktime/mov)

On the patamatics of interior voodle gaze

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod/iPhone / direct streaming for PC

" To live is to leave traces. In the interior these are emphasised. An abundance of covers and protectors, liners and cases are devised, on which the traces of objects of everyday use are imprinted. The traces of the occupant also leave their impressions on the interior....I can thus feel myself under the gaze of someone whose eyes I do not see, not even discern. From the moment this gaze exists, I am already something other, in that I feel myself becoming an object for the gaze of others. But in this position, which is a reciprocal one, others also know that I am an object who knows himself to be seen. "

Architecture is not simply a platform that accommodates the viewing subject. It is also a viewing mechanism that might produce the subject. It precedes and frames its occupants, and certainly exerts a moving theatricality in the expansive patamatics of the voodling gaze. View the cornered moves in a famed Nordic interior by clicking here or immerse first in Brut Smog's fine analytic dissection of voodling. (patafilm # 697b, 06'35'', 55.3MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a serene moment of a walkway into a lake, recorded from a quite famous hut. (Lum # 208 " alvar's pond " 00'49'', 6MB, Quicktime/mov)

On motivated conceptual metaphor mapping

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod/iPhone / direct streaming for Pc

“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form -- it may be called fleeting or eternal -- is in neither case the stuff that life is made of....yet, the camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.”

After gathering some footage from his exosomatic memory, Sam Renseiw concocted a moving cognitive map, composed as a diptych; View the unfolding of profane moves in a sacred crimson path followed by a complementary green spatial botanical traverse by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 659, 04'09'', 33.5MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a mute, didactic and multi-framed composition, conveying the making of an architectural masterpiece. (Lum # 176, "sverre's didactics" 0'59'', 6MB, Quicktime/mov )

On discontinuous space and time flow

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod / direct streaming for Pc at Blip.tv

“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if only short glimpses appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form - it may be called fleeting or eternal - is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.”

Reflecting on remembrance of things past in fleeting voodles, Sam Renseiw montaged a short moment of recent chamberwork(s). Enjoy a moment of compressed time, with ancient hypology inserts, by clicking here or on the links above.(patafilm # 610, 02'40'', 15.2Mb, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a festive moment at a Copenhagen lectern. (Lum # 127," city-hall lectern", 01'00'',5.1MB, Quicktime//mov)

Today's Patalab Metaphor Video re-play-supplement features another hypology study. (patafim #185, 00'48'',[31.05.2006 post] 3.6 MB, mov/quicktime)

On Voodle-dialectics of seeing

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod / other versions at Blip.tv

"Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the present ground is the medium in which past spaces and artefacts lie interred and can be voodled forth... Thus, work on a good voodle has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an tectonic one when it is montaged, and a textile one when it is woven into a moving picture... Yet, a voodle real strength's lies in its improvisation. All the decisive framings should be struck in a serendipitous and left-handed flow."

Pondering on a recent statement that museums and old buildings might be too soporific environments, Sam Renseiw re-visited a local museum on a sunny Sunday afternoon. View the inspired voodle unfolding of the museum-interior gaze, complete with didactic, Godard-like whispers by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 570, 06'03'' 35.3Mb, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv) [semanal08 project, week 7 cross-post]

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video Features a classic, architectural soft-reflection-on-granite from inside the above mentioned museum. (Lum # 87, "soft-granite-reflection",00'48'' 5.1MB, Quicktime/mov) Other's fine Lumieres at A&B's site.

Today's Patalab Metaphor Video re-play-supplement features a contrasting promenade, also through a museum: this time in a modern, contemporary white space, with nothing on exhibition. (patafilm # 223, 02'22''[01.08.2006 post], 8.3 MB, Quicktime/mov) Click here or on the bold links in the text to view.

Attempt of postcard essay to JLG

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod / other versions at Blip.tv

" Experience of the aura rests on the transportation of a response common in human relationships to the relation between the inanimate or natural object and man. The person we look at, or who feels he is being looked at, looks at us in turn. To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return."

Concerned with the presence of objects as well as an obssesive - compulsive concern with JLG oeuvre's imagery, Sam Renseiw montaged a short voodle-essay, in the spirit of Montaigne. View the representation of interior with external voice-over by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 568, 03'27'', 21.3Mb, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere video features a quiet round of saddling-up in a marvellous interior.( Lum # 84, "quiet saddling up", 00'58'', 5.6MB, Quicktime/mov) As always, more of other's Lumieres at the main site.

Today's Patalab Metaphor Video repay-supplement features a architectural space, seemingly with a view, with further pataphysical inserts: a genuine Lumiere (!), and Godard / Hitchcock voice-overs.(patafilm #242, 01'12'', 5.5 MB,Quicktime/mov- [06.09.2006 post]. Click here or on the bold links in the text to view.

On arcades and things around us

click for video: Quicktime / .m4v for iPod / other at Blip.tv

" By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring commonplace milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the voodle, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action...With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended; with the altering of high-definition snow blindness, filters can add oblique oneiric subjectivity; with montage, inserts can unfold the poetics of simultaneous - short-circuiting - surrealistic glimpses."

Apart from literary preoccupations, and still dabbling with combining sight, seen and semiotics, Sam Renseiw reshuffled some studious insights. View the blurred and montaged voodle complete with arcades, monument(s) and a short glimpse of Breton's Nadja by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 558, [senamal08week2], 02'19'', 13.9MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Luminere video features a subdued and serene scene of night fodder. (Lum # 75 "fodder", 00'58'', 5.8MB, Quicktime/mov)

On photographic art and receptions

click for video: Quicktime / Flash and other versions at Blip.tv

"Magician and surgeon compare to painter and voodler. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the voodler penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the voodler consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the voodle is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art."

Speculating on the nature of voodles in the age of digital reproduction, Sam Renseiw permeated into the web of a recent birthday reception at a famed photographic gallery, capturing multiple footage fragments. View the ensuing mash-up complete with sublime positivesound and a diegetic song by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 550, 03'07'', 19.2Mb, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere video features more footage from the reception. (Lum # 68"dick and jane at the reception", 01'00'',6.2MB, Quicktime/mov)

On The Persistence of Memory and Context

click for: Quicktime version / Flash version

"Memory has three different aspects: memory when it remembers things, imagination when it alters or imitates them, and invention when it gives them a new turn or puts them into proper arrangement and relationship. For these reasons the poets called memory the mother of the Muses."

"Not to know one's way in a city doesn't signify much. But to lose oneself in a city as one loses oneself in a forest calls for schooling" muses Sam Renseiw paraphrasing Benjamin, thus vaguely remembering a questionnaire session after walking the invisible reality show last November. Re-view the world as thing and image q/a video by clicking here or on the links above - and fill in the audio-blanks yourself- visual poetry and the continuity of silent pata-language... although: we must look straight at objects and not squint, for in that case the eyes do not see that at which they look, but rather distorts and confuses it...yet: the squint is crucial in providing the aslant view that makes the object new. (patafilm # 396,03'41'', 17.1MB, quicktime/mov - flash version at blip.tv)