On pedestrian rhetorics & displacements

“What does travel ultimately produce if it is not, by a sort of reversal, 'an exploration of the deserted places of my memory,' the return to nearby exoticism by way of a detour through distant places, and the 'discovery' of relics and legends: 'fleeting visions of voodled countrysides,' 'fragments of music and poetry,' in short, something like an 'uprooting in one's origins ? What this walking exile produces is precisely the body of legends that is currently lacking in one's own vicinity; it is a fiction, which moreover has the double characteristic like dreams or pedestrian rhetoric, or being the effect of displacements and condensations. As a corollary, one can measure the importance of these signifying voodling practices (to tell oneself legends) as practices that invent spaces.”…

“Nothing disappears completely ... In space, what came earlier continues to underpin what follows ... Pre-existing space underpins not only durable spatial arrangements, but also representational spaces and their attendant imagery and mythic narratives…..”What we will criticize 'modern' visual eroticism for is its lack of genuine sensuality, a sensuality which implies beauty or charm, passion or modesty, power over the object of desire, and fulfilment.”

After a longer period of unsettelment due to the Vine app disparition, Sam Renseiw managed to (re)combine a poorly simulacrum site at IG. Speculating (and paraphrasing) some of the wise words by Lefebvre and De Certeau, Renseiw manged to compile  most of the voodled snipnets since January, into a longer, audio-visual puzzle piece. Enjoy.[Short voodle [vine]compilation # 16,39'30'', 3,2GB, Quicktime.mov, Vimeo] (Some of patalab02's works might be discussed at the upcomming ELO 17 international conference)

On thresholds and contrivances

Such is the contrivance of the Voodler. And such is also that of our knowledge. Instead of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming of things, we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose their becoming artificially. We take snapshots, as it were, of the passing reality….We may therefore sum up…that the mechanism of our ordinary knowledge is of a cinematographical kind… Voodling is the one art form where the voodler can see himself as the creator of an unconditional reality…. In voodles man’s innate drive to self-assertion finds one of its fullest and most direct means of realisation. A Voodle is an emotional reality, and that is how the audience receives it -as a second reality."

Paraphrasing some older Bergson text quotes, Renseiw resumes a bit of voodling activity; As as fresh piece of docu-voodling, a short visual sequence of architectural (urban)thresholds and contrivances is layed-out anew, in another duration, for better (intro)spection. View the short elongated visual above, underlayed with a (sublime) bout of de Tapol soundtrack. [patafilm # 875, 01'53'', 208MB,Quicktime/mov, Vimeo]

On Sisyphus Work and Other Visual Essays

“Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it. We live on the future: “tomorrow,” “later on,” “when you have made your way,” “you will understand when you are old enough.” Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it’s a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is sixty. Thus he asserts his (pased) youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it….There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up…"

Having again collected fragments of audio-visual moments and assembled them into a chronological vine-compilation, Sam Renseiw, in an existential(ist) Sisyphusian mood, paraphrases Albert Camus for this blogpost entry… continuing the completely futile re-trospective body of work(s) in a world of 1:1 real-image live streamings… Enjoy a moment of digital nostalgia by activating the footage. [Vine compilation # 12, 473MB, 09'44'', Quicktiome/mov > vimeo ]  

On fieldwork voodling : distant voices

 " Suddenly the sight before me was recast in a manner satisfying to my vague expectation. Only afterwards did I recognize, as justifications for the change, the resemblance and contiguity of what I call ‘stimuli’— namely the most determinate phenomena, seen at close quarters and with which I compose the ‘true’ world. ‘How could I have failed to see that these pieces of wood were an integral part of the ship? For they were of the same colour as the ship, and fitted well enough into its superstructure.’ But these reasons for correct perception were not given as reasons beforehand. The unity of the object is based on the foreshadowing of an imminent order which is about to spring upon us a reply to questions merely latent in the landscape. It solves a problem set only in the form of a vague feeling of uneasiness, it organizes elements which up to that moment did not belong to the same universe and which, for that reason, as Kant said with profound insight, could not be associated. By placing them on the same footing, that of the unique object, synopsis makes continuity and resemblance between them possible. An impression can never by itself be associated with another impression.” 

Quoting a passage Merleau-Ponty's Perceptive Phenomenology, Sam Renseiw, having concotted another conglo-merate of boxed footage fragments of a recent Fieldworks performance, posts yet another performative docu-voodle.  Enjoy the sublte sublime moves of Heine Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki & co by clicking on the icon above. (patafilm # 865, 08'46'', 249MB, quicktime/mov)

Of macro distortion and didactic interior

"…In my Voodling I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed…Thus, your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.."

Paraphrasing Burroughs (a few days after the centenary), Sam Renseiw concocted snippets of left-over interior footage from last summer into some cosmonauting spread of inner spaces… Enjoy meditating on the question(s). [Patafilm # 863, 02'59'', 58 MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv]

Against forgetfulness: yet another compilation

 "Brown, thick curtains: it's best when they're drawn in towards the middle, the middle of the window, a small opening in the middle, a narrow strip of light, a September-strip or an April gash, as when you plunge a knife into trouser material and rip."..."Everyday tasks: wearing yourself out trying to find something new, a new word, a new sentence, a new book."..."Why travel? 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."

Paraphrasing Tomas Espedal, thoughts reawaken and lose their dullness, it's a thoroughly physical experience, my thoughts brighten, and I start compiling vines again, lighter this time, up towards the fjord, the cities centre(s) and al the many bouts of flying in (or out). Slowly it dawns on me, I am happy because I am Vining; Before that I used to Voodle around, and some few would watch. These days even less do. Yet it does fullfil my sense of diary, my duty of visual naration(s), my obsessive compulsion, also this year.

With all the best wishes for a happy new year to all patalab viewers, yours  sincerely, SamR.

(vinecompilation # 4 (winter), 15'32'', 273 MB, Quicktime/mov; mpg4 version at Bliptv)

On momentary pop_up(s)

"After their first brief, yet inspiring encounter in 2011 at the Australian festival Dance Massive, the artists Luke George (AU), Miguel Gutierrez (US), Heine Avdal (NO) and Yukiko Shinozaki (JP) meet again at the Meteor 2013 festival in Bergen (NO). The artists will follow the festival day by day, and prepare the public some short and unannounced performative appetizers or digestives. Watch your back!" 

Just passing by, anyway, Sam Renseiw manages, nevertheless, to capture some re-located, (quite) interactive  visual spoken word field_works by Heine and Yukiko, just to exist again, in best angelus modus. [patafilm # 860, 02'58'', 55MB, Quicktime/mov- Bliptv version here)

Are we not drawn onward to new era ?

 1/ "A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, hero's, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal - Panama! "

2/ "His flack: late no-no's, tits, a cow. Two-cow, to tenor of God! A sin is a sign, ignoble udder-cases! La femme fatale gnawed at a phone-post, also lost call, eh? She'll act solo, slats open. Oh, pat a dew-angel at a femme false. Sacred duel, bonging is a sin; is a dog? For one to two-cow two, cast it so none talk calfs!"

Dabbling in palindromic unrest these days, Sam Renseiw concotted a short palindromic voodle (from a somewhat recent, yet allready bygone spring's phonefootage batch). View the pull by clicking on the image above, or view .m4v version via blip.tv here. [patafilm # 859, "forward anomyn", 03'10'', 46MB, Quicktime/mov)

On new Vine, some time(s) and other places

"…All I know is that the hours are long, under these conditions, and constrain us to beguile them with proceedings which –how shall I say–which may at first sight seem reasonable, until they become a habit. You may say it is to prevent our reason from foundering. No doubt. But has it not long been straying in the night without end of the abyssal depths? That's what I sometimes wonder. You follow my reasoning…We wait. We are bored. No, don't protest, we are bored to death, there's no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. Come, let's get to work! In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness!"

Sam Renseiws broods, just after uploading the latest Vine compilation, quoting B (again). Enjoy working yourself trough the one hundred and sixty vines ( not all arranged, but mostly, chronologically) by clicking on the vimeo upload above.Soundtrack underlay from kres5jik / persimon [vinecompilation #3,  14'42'', 260MB, Quicktime/mov] or try the original Blip.tv upload here- sometimes with adds(!)

On cognitive time-space synaestesia

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

"Voodling removes one from the night and the day at the same time. It can neither bring into question nor bring into action this world that binds us.... the mind feels agitated, while in an aesthetic judgment about the beautiful in nature it is in restful contemplation. This agitation (above all at its inception) can be compared with a vibration, i.e. with a rapid alternation of repulsion from, and attraction to, one and the same object. If a thing is excessive for the imagination (and the imagination is driven to such excess as it apprehends the thing in intuition), then the thing is, as it were, an abyss in which the imagination is afraid to lose itself."

After another hectic work period, Sam Renseiw found time to re-collect parts of nevertheless acquired and amassed footage. Take a short peak into the concocted docu-voodled space of a (real) synaesthesia (psychology)lab with some added appearances. Click here or on the links above. (patafilm # 845, 02'43'', 47,1 MB,Quicktime/mov - Other versions on Blipv)


Today's Bonus Lumiere Video conveys a fine sense of contemplation. (Lum # 335 "Mr.Palomar" 00'58'', 16MB, Quicktime/mov)

On (more) voodled paraphernalia

" Since a phenomenological inquiry on voodling aspires to go so far and so deep, because of methodological obligations, it must go beyond the sentimental resonances with which we receive (more or less richly-whether this richness be within ourselves or within the voodle) a work of art. This is where the phenomenological doublet of resonances and repercussions must be sensitized. The resonances are dispersed on the different planes of our life in the world, while the repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our own existence. In the resonance we hear the voodle, in the reverberations we speak it, it is our own. The reverberations bring about a change of being. It is as though the voodler's being were our being. The multiplicity of resonances then issues from the reverberations' unity of being. Or, to put it more simply, this is an impression that all impassioned voodle-lovers know well: the voodle possesses us entirely."

After some stressful time-lag not posting Sam Renseiw is back with a longer poetics-of-space voodle, paraphrasing with delight: "I should like my house to be similar to that of the ocean wind, all quivering with gulls." (A house that stands in my heart/My cathedral of silence/Every morning recaptured in dream/Every evening abandoned/A house covered with dawn/Open to the winds of my youth.) Enter for some peculiar inner paraphernalia by clicking here or on the links above.(patafilm # 844, 05'47'', 86MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video Features a classic Lumiere moment, albeit in darkness. (Lum # 334 "classique Lumiere noir"01'00'', 17MB, Quicktime/mov)

On re-mapping(s) in memory voodles

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

" We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest in memory. And we shall do so if we establish similitudes as striking as possible; if we set up images that are not many or vague but active; if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we ornament some of them, as with repetitive black painted stripes on the floor, so that the similitude may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained with blood or soiled with mud and smeared with red paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our voodles, for that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily "

Affected, once again, by the task of facilitating a certain order in produced material(s), Sam Renseiw attempts to visualize the striped outlays for (arte)facts with some in-depth probes of adjacent spaces. View the short ars memoria with montaged inserts from ways of losing oneself in an image by clicking here or on the links above.(patafilm # 831, 03'48'', 65MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a straightforward detournement of body and space morphology.(Lum # 322, "ways of losing oneself ", 01'00'', 23MB, Quicktime/mov)

On Living Sculptures and other accords

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

"In principle, “an accord” is a mutual agreement, between two or more parties. The agreement is in essence, a political one; it connotes “the social accord,” the instant we give up our sovereignty as citizens to a government or other authority, in the name of maintaining social order through “the rule of law.” Arguably, the (art) institution is a legal body that functions within similar parameters of publicly endowed trust, between written and unwritten agreements. [....] What types of participation are condoned, accepted, supported and allowed within the institution? Can mutual understanding be fortified through a breach of trust or displacement of expectation? Can curatorial and artistic tactics of engagement with(in) the institution reveal not only its politics, but elucidate a particular political condition? What tools are at our disposal, as visitors, as guests to the institution, as parties within an implied accord, within the actual, social and discursive spaces the institution has founded?"

Just passing by, recently, Sam Renseiw encountered a slow moving bunch, seemingly working out some accord in public, only to later discover the in-situ curatorial meaning. View the docu-voodled grey demo with added slo-mo by cliking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 820, 04'33'', 64MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a moving vista from a bridge (Lum # 310, "fjordvison-bridge" 01'00'', 17MB, Quicktime/mov)

On architectural investigations in voodle

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

" 65./ Here we come up against the great question that lies behind all these considerations….- for someone might object against me: " You take the easy way out! You talk about all sorts of voodle games, but have nowhere said what the essence of a voodle-game and hence voodling, is: what is common to all these activities, and what makes them into voodles or parts of voodling. So you let yourself off the very part of the investigation that once gave you yourself most headache, the part about the general form of footage recordings and of voodling." And this is true.- instead of producing something common to all we call patafilmic language, I am saying that those phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all.- but because that they are related to one another in many different way. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all "voodles".

Pondering on the intricacies of visual language & mixing cross-references, all the while attempting to maintaining an architectural stance, Sam Renseiw recently recorded pin-up footage in a closed space, accompanied by yellow submarine excerpts. View the condensed phenomenological docu-voodle essay from a norwegian re_mote exercise by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 819,42MB, 03'02'', Quicktime/mov - other versions at bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a leafing-through more condensed re_moteness material. (lum# 309, 01'00''14 MB, Quicktime/mov)

And: a relevant patalab Lumiere (2010re-play mermaid_exchange) Free Ai Weiwei ! (free_aiweiwei-lum, 01'00'',13MB, Quicktime/mov)

On enigmas of voodle transparency

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

"The essential difference between painting and voodles is the difference in the manner in which they, not the beliefs of those who see them, are based on beliefs of their makers. Voodles are counterfactually dependent on the voodled scene(s) even if the beliefs (and other intentional attitudes) of the voodler are held fixed. Paintings which have a counterfactual dependence on the scene portrayed lose it when the beliefs and the visual experiences which the viewer derives from a picture are dependent on the picture maker's beliefs in whichever manner the picture itself is. I order to see through the voodle to the scene(s) depicted, the viewer must have visual experiences which do not depend on the voodler's beliefs in the way film or paintings do. We can leave open the question of whether, to be seeing (the voodle)scene(s), the viewer must have beliefs about it and what connection there might be between his/her visual experiences and beliefs."

Reflecting on the state(s) of visual readings in an advanced digital age, Sam Renseiw montaged bits and bouts from recently recorded footage into a enigmatic docu-voodle; Thus maintaining, in chronological (and slow obssessive-complusive) diary manner, a Proustian pursuit of matter and memory. View the cut-up, filmic document with footage from three cities, by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 818, 04'39'', 61MB, Quicktime/mov -other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a simple, straight-forward scene of age-old activity, re-performed. [Lum #308," sandvikan drummers", 01'00'', 17MB, Quicktime /mov)

On meta-voodle & ethos_thanatos reflections

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

"States of schizophrenia are native to meta_voodle’s present-absence, its not quite-existence, its fictionalization of truth and its verification of illusion. For Kant, “This fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is indeed an identical, and therefore analytical proposition; but it nevertheless explains the necessity for a synthesis of the manifold given in an intuition, without which the identity of self-consciousness would be incogitable”. Now, self-consciousness is indeed “cogitable,” but is it necessary? The axiom that communication is human may lead to individual human communicators, but it need not, since selfhood is a derivative of communication, a special effect of a particular historical mode of communication. Since self-consciousness is no longer a given but an effect, synthesizing the myriad sensations that crowd upon us into recognizable identities is also in question. I am thus never sure whether what I perceive is raw phenomenality, abstract identity, or synthetic truth."

Indeed, muses Sam Renseiw, paraphrasing from cinema effect, while capturing (pure meta-meta-voodling!) reflective dance footage produced by the local Bergen triad: Eckly, Spreafico and Cohen. View excerpted kill me baby one more time footage and other short non-carte blanche moves by clicking here or on the links above.(patafilm # 816, 05'22'',117MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features another short dance excerpt also in meta-lumiere.(lum # 307 "meta-dance-voodle", 01'00, 17MB, Quicktime/mov)

On A Trip To Norway [music_voodle]

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

"A dutch family went to Norway in the seventies. Mom, dad, their daugther and some friends. The pictures made on that trip are the only ones left of the girl's youth. And now they (the pictures) are going to travel themselves. Back to Norway where they were made. Site specific projections will fill the walls…"

Just passing by in the last minute, Sam Renseiw managed to capture glimpses of Marike Pool's fine projections in the notorious aquarium in King Oscar's Lane, while musing over Bergson's dictum of "the pure present as an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future… In truth all sensation is already memory." View the resulting short, montaged docu-voodle with distorted nostalgic soundtrack by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 813, 01'35'', 36MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a marvellous, subdued, gridded sexandthecity scene at the Penguin's window.(lum# 304, 00'57'', 21MB, quicktime/mov)

On Philosophical Investigations in Voodles

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

" I contemplate a city at night, and then suddenly notice its likeness to another. I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this experience “noticing an aspect...” And I must distinguish between the ‘continuous seeing’ of an aspect and the ‘dawning’ of an aspect.... I see two pictures, with the chandelier-bunad surrounded by houses in one, by a multitude of buildings blocks and a bridge in the other. I do not notice that they are the same. Does it follow from this that I see something different in the two cases? It gives us a reason for using this expression here. “ I saw it quite differently, I should never have recognized it!” Now, that is an exclamation. And there is also a justification for it. I should never have thought of superimposing the chandelier-bunad like that, of making this comparison between them.... I describe the alteration (change of aspect) like a perception; quite as if the space had altered before my eyes.... The expression of a change of aspect is the expression of a new perception and at the same time of the perception’s being unchanged. I suddenly see the solution of a puzzle-picture."

When is an image just an image muses Sam Renseiw while contemplating a city scape from an inside, configuring a just-voodled-image into a broader investigation of body-space morphology. View the short reflective docu-voodle by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 812,02'00'', 38MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features an urban interior re-modeling-job at night. (lum # 303,"enclosed paint-job", 01'00'', 17MB, Quicktime/mov)

On some artfull conditions in voodles

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

"The necessary condition for an Voodle is sight," Janouch told Kafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: "We voodle things in order to drive them out of our minds..." My Voodles are a way of shutting my eyes..."What the Voodle reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the voodle mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially... yet, a Voodle is always invisible, it is not it that we see."

Remembering Barthes considerations that "the age of voodling corresponds precisely to the explosion of the private into the public", (or rather into the creation of a new social value, which is the publicity of the private), Sam Renseiw concocted footage from two recent, semiprivate events, into a distinct diptych voodle. View some private glimpses of jump-cutted reality by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 806, 02'24'', 41MB, Quikctime/mov - other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a quiet moment of winter after sunset-glow. (lum# 297,"moon-house-boat"15Mb, 00'59'', Quicktime/mov)

On feeling at home and other triads

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

" ELLEN is about feeling at home, which is not necessarily where you live. Five cities' individual stories and inhabitants are brought into the performance, presented by three actors; The performance ELLEN is s a meeting between the unknown and the foreign. What is personal, what is universal. The local and the common. (An unusual theatre-experience to be seen and especially heard.)"

Questing the Hotel again, Sam Renseiw indulges in a bout of local Ellen; View the somehow (barking) juxtaposition(s) of oblique, local, foreign and common by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 800, 01'16'', 21,4MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a short moment of diptych academic screening;(Lum#292 "academic screening" 00'56'', 14MB, Quicktime/mov)