Do you still make voodles ?

 "Yes. I think, if I may say so, it’s like a sentence by Picasso I was once struck by: “I like to paint until the painting refuses me.” I would say that vlogging won’t refuse me for a couple more voodles, a couple more years, so it’s a reconciliation. Not with what I want, because I don’t know what I want, but with what I want from what I have. And to be more able to not ask for something else, but to do only what you really like, to deal with what you have. It’s a more peaceful attitude. When I’m doing a voodle, I’m not angry anymore when it is not well done. Not to be angry that the video should be this way or against another way, but just to do it your way."

 In the midst of summer-DVD re-viewing, Sam Renseiw, immersed into "The "Idiots" and "The End of Language" fell prone to an irresistible recording urge… view the resulting dogma '95 inspired quick-shot docu-voodle complete with diegetic sound and the above JLG paraphrase by clicking on the icon above. [patafilm # 873, 04'10'', 445MB, Quicktime/mov > Vimeo]

On cognitive time-space synaestesia

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"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 Philosophical Investigations in Voodles

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" 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 more arcane arcade voodling

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'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 figure-ground perceptions

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" And the music itself was wonderful. At first it struck me as exaggerated, artificial, even incomprehensible. Little by little, though, with repeated listenings, a vague image formed in my mind--an image that had meaning. When I closed my eyes and concentrated, the music came to me as a series of whirlpools. One whirlpool would form, and out of it another would take shape. And the second whirlpool would connect up with a third. Those whirlpools, I realize now, had a conceptual, abstract quality to them ... With ears perked up and eyes closed, I imagined the existence of a certain place. This place I imagined was still incomplete. It was misty, indistinct, its outlines vague. Yet I was sure that something absolutely vital lay waiting for me there.."

While paraphrasing Murakami (again) Sam Renseiw, slowly shifting gear from splintered, stressfully decontructed workpatterns to (hopefuly) more friendly, northbound comming environments, composed a simple aller-retour-voodle from slightly older footage. View the figure-ground slide by clicking here or on the links above.(patafilm # 788, 02'15'', 27.5MB, Quicktime/mov -other versions at Bliptv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video is a very straight forward illumination. [Lum # 281, "candela" , 01'00'', Quicktime/mov)

On memory as place and interior journeys

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" Memory as a place, as a building, as a sequence of columns, cornices, porticoes, rooms enfilade. The body inside the mind, as if we were moving around in there, going from one place to the next [..] To realise that one's steps, by taking one nowhere, are taking one nowhere but into oneself...What we are really doing when we submerge in a voodle is thinking, and thinking in such a way that our thoughts (re)compose a journey.[..] and even if we do not leave our room, it has been a journey, and we might safely say that we have been somewhere, even if we don't know where it is."

After recently having [casually] passed through an animated series of didactic spaces, Sam Renseiw attempted to reconstruct bits of hastily recorded footage into another tale, altogether. View voodled concoction by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 783,03'44'' 49MB,Quicktime/mov - other versions at Bliptv)

On voodle derive in confined spaces

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"...If chance plays an important role in dérives this is because the methodology of psychogeographical observation is still in its infancy. But the action of chance is naturally conservative and in a new setting tends to reduce everything to habit or to an alternation between a limited number of variants. Progress means breaking through fields where chance holds sway by creating new conditions more favorable to voodling purposes.."

Caught on a strife of almost random urban derive, Sam Renseiw retreats into an internal spatial field; View the concocted psychogeographical voodle by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 764, 03'30''. 58MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Expect: more derives from surprising places in the near future. Best, SamR.

On still moving in space(s)

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" If I could only describe this place - I who am so good at describing places! Walls, ceiling, floors, they are my speciality. Doors! Windows! What haven't I imagined in the way of windows in the course of my career! Some opened on the sea - all you could see was sea and sky. If I could put myself in a room, that would be the end of the voodly-gurdy. Even doorless, even windowless - nothing but the four surfaces (the six surfaces). I'd find a way to explore it: I'd listen to the echo. I'd get to know it, I'd get to remember it. I'd be home. I'd say what it's like, in my home, instead of any old thing. "

Still recording moves in space(s), Sam Renseiw, paraphrases Beckett (again) to fathom the depths of the possible nature of space vodoling. Patalab's 2009 activities (almost) conclude with two interior, investigative space-voodles (patafilm # 739, 02'467'', 38MB, Quicktime/mov // patafilm # 740, 02'52'', 37MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv) and a fixed, enlightening planetary Bonus Lumiere Video (Lum # 243 " still moving", 00'48'', 11MB, Quicktime/mov). And: one more, happy-new post, tomorrow. ;-)

The acoustic life of silent objects

"Part social experiment, part sound exploration, and part guaranteed conceptual failure, Ed Osborn's Audio Recordings of Great Works of Art was initially intended to investigate the aural side of the museum experience with the expectation that recordings of the acoustic life of silent objects would reveal almost nothing about them. Except in the case of extremely popular art works where crowds gather noisily, this proved to be true."

Sam Renseiw proves himself adept here at sounding out this rarely navigated, nearly silent, and always invisible terrain, in the midst of H5n1, lurking. View how there is much more to sound and noise than can be picked up through microphones here or click on the artwork above. (patafilm 119b, 00'46'', 5.2 MB, mov/quicktime) relinked 02.10.15