on back to the sea

 

 

"The journey takes us through time and space. On the former seabed, embedded in this artificail nature, we travel back in time to unravel some of stories under the landscape(s). Back to the Sea is a common ritual where we can, together, search for what we have lost..."

After a time without longer recording (shorter pieces almost daily at Sam's IG account),here is a longer docu-voodle, featuring a stranded ark and a longer pilgrimage to the sea.( "Back to the Sea", part of Metropolis 2022, by Lisa Brüning, Alfio Bonanno, Peter Flyvholm, Elisabet holager Lund, Adrian Skjoldborg)

[Sam Renseiw  2022, "Back to the Sea", 08'39'', 989MB, quicktime.mov, vimeo]

on liberties that do not offend the eye

…”The philosophers of the Enlightenment were of the opinion that the rigours of nature fostered freedom-loving people. The Scandinavian artists who travelled to Rome were received in that spirit and participated actively in the process of liberation. In a letter from Rome in 1812, the architect Peder Mailing related that Thorvaldsen wished to “reinstate the golden era of the Greeks in the present age” and wished himself to “create a second Athens in his native land. If one makes a detailed study of the Greek column orders and familiarizes oneself with the Roman arches, one can master the application of any style … and take liberties that by no means offend the eye.” Styles became divorced from time, and the archeologists revived the life that had come to a standstill with the eruption of Vesuvius. Art styles were to have equal value. Thorvaldsen had liberated sculpture from architecture. Voodling was just as valuable as historical painting.”.. 

After a longer period vlogging the artistisc reaserch via Instagram, Renseiw post a unique condensation of views from KF18N, with a paraphrased quote from Lisbeth BJ. [patafilm # 877, 02’05’’, 205MB, Quicktime/mov] 

On embodied space and happy new

“..Embodied cinema-writing is the hybrid body/camera encountering and re-acting to an infinitely generative universe. SPACETWO: PATALAB is a visual/spa-tial research videoblog that has been run by Sam Renseiw since 2005. The blog, later Vine and now Instagram accounts, holds a vast archive of video doodles or “voodles” that are spontaneous cinematic investigations of space. Renseiw in-troduces each video with a short remix of theoretical texts related to his spatial research: Jarry, Bergson, de Certeau, Debord, Calvino, Borges, to name a few. Be-yond these short texts and reflections, Renseiw, as a persona, remains a mystery. Never a presence in front of the camera, he is bodily present in his framing, montage and idiosyncratic camera gestures: walking shots, stuttering zooms, meandering glides. Renseiw’s “voice” is this gestural cinematography and intu-itive montage giving shape to the spaces he encounters: the way it is framed and reflected by windows, occluded by translucent surfaces, filled with unexpected textures, geometric shapes and signs. He discovers repetitions and flows, still-ness in concert with movement, the close embedded in the far. The voodles are micro-narratives of perception.”

New years greetings, a bit late; Most voodling endeavours seeem to be 6” short(s), lately. And then there was a peculiar project, that took some time. Anticipate more (video)posts here, in the near future. In the mean time: merci beaucoup to professor Luers for his very kind mention regarding Sam’s voodles, in  his paper “A Chance for Cinema-Writing in Electronic Literature”. It keeps the work alive !    Best wishes for a happy new year to all  viewers.

On capturing space about to be lost

“The voodler does not use 'descriptions' of the world; he himself has a hand in its creation…..Only when a person is willing and able to trust the voodler, to believe him, can he be sensitive and susceptible to art. But how hard it sometimes is to cross the threshold of incomprehension which cuts us off from the emotional, poetic image. It is a mistake to talk about the voodler 'looking for' his subject. In fact the subject grows within him like a fruit, and begins to demand expression. It is like childbirth . . The voodler has nothing to be proud of: he is not master of the situation, but a servant. Creative work is his only possible form of existence, and his every work is like a deed he has no power to annul. For him to be aware that a sequence of such deeds is due and right, that it lies in the very nature of things, he has to have faith in the idea, for only faith interlocks the system of images…”

A long due short voodle by Renseiw… who seems lost in short, accumulating short moments, post Vine, in the semi-homelessness of IG… In this short kitchen window sill voodle (just stuff there anyway) Renseiw ponders on the nostalgia of space(s) about to be lost [patafilm # 876, 02’36’’,76MB, Quicktime/mov, Vimeo] 

on vignettes, cumulation(s) and screenings

“What we need to question is bricks, concrete, glass, our table manners, our utensils, our tools, the way we spend our time, our rhythms. To question that which seems to have ceased forever to astonish us…”

Cumulating simple visual questions through the optics of 6 second video vine snippets lately, Renseiw continues to follow Perec's dictum..by Vining   In case of impatience, go watch the visual questions unfold on IG- > sam_renseiw

By benevolent request from Pryle Behrman via Michael Szpakowsky, and continuous inclusions to one-minutes by Kerry Baldry, some older collaborative “Lumiere et Son” videos will soon be screened at “quickqickquick” at the 2018 London Art Fair. 

Hope youn can make it there.

Whishing all viewers a very hapy new year… via this patapab02 vlogpage, still working (well) in the original format and design from 2005 (probably one of the oldest vlogs still running!!) Best Regards SAM RENSEIW

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 the re-habitation of fiction /CC01

"…On the desolate border between the North and South State lies Ruby Town, a settlement populated mostly by the descendants and cult worshippers of Martha Rubin – a famous oracle, who has returned to the living. Tales of her occult gifts and cryptic visions draw great interest in the region, and residents and transients gather to witness her dark predilections. The villagers nurture their recovering oracle and perform rituals in her name, as their future existence is threatened by radiation poisoning in the village, which is said to cause infertility amongst the women. The adjoining North State military outpost supplies the community with food, water and amenities, as soldiers fallen from grace merge with the rugged villagers. Conflicts occur and pass, cards are played, and rumors grow and die - among the strange phenomena…"

Almost a decade after intense embedded voodling for some 18 hours in Signa's Circle Camp, Sam Renseiw reminiscences this fantastic inhabitation of Fiction, blurring the usual boundaries between space(s), audience and performer(s).

The footage is still extremely fresh. Recorded with a tiny, handheld Contax U4R camera, Renseiw had no idea of what would happen next, during all recording, piercing the 4th wall of theatricality… complete with continouus Williams boot-cringing. All is absurdly genuine, including the performers, as they just thought the Contax was a sound recording device. Few had any notion of digital video ten years ago. " Filming" needed some much larger apparatus was the common knowledge then.

Enjoy the re-posted first episode. More of the 11 next will be posted regularly on the vlog, trying to fulfill the promise of a fully operating Vlog by June. [re-post patafim # 476b,02'45'', 525MB,Quicktime/mov > Vimeo]

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 the consistency of vining & voodling

“…Sam Renseiw does not lose heart and at each moment he thinks he has managed to see everything to be seen from his observation point(s), but then something always crops up that he had not borne in mind. If it were not for his impatience to reach a complete, definitive conclusion of his visual operation(s), Vining could save him from neurasthenia, heart attack, and gastric ulcer. And it could perhaps be the key to mastering the world's complexity by reducing it to its simplest mechanism: 6 seconds moving recordings. Sometimes shorter, always looping...” 

With the demise of the Vine app in January, the social-inter-activities will change. Yet, Investigating the coming Vine Camera as active app, more Renseiw (vine)compilations can be expected appearing here, next year. Interactive check on twitter: @SamRenseiw or IG: sam_renseiw. Since last year, some links on the Vlog have been repaired, yet about over 580 remain..If you find non working links in the in-between, try see if they might be on archive.org (sam patafilm/lumiere #(s) as in the posts texts) 

In the mean time: thank you so much (again) for (maybe still) following the work here or somewhere else…(somehow, somewhere in theses times of multiple platforms. Yet: the voodles (still)look great on iPhones and ipadminis, even the oldest ones. Try. A happy, prosperous and hopefully peaceful 2017 to all of you from your's sincerely: Sam R. (vine compilation #15, 10' 22’’, 950 MB, quicktime/mov /Vimeo)

On counting to be in the world [vining]

“…What counts is to be in the world, the posture is immaterial, so long as one is on earth. To breathe is all that is required, there is no obligation to ramble Vining, or receive company, you may even believe yourself dead on condition you make no bones about it, what more liberal regimen could be imagined, I don't know, I don't imagine. No pomt under such circumstances in saying I am somewhere else, someone else, such as I am I have all I need to hand, for to do what, I don't know, all I have to do, there I am on my own again at last, what a relief that must be. Yes, there are moments, like this moment, when I seem almost restored to the feasible. Then it goes, all goes, and I'm far again, with a far story again, I wait for me afar for my story to begin, to end, and again this voice cannot be mine. That's where I'd go, if I could go, that's who I'd be, if I could be.”

One more. Compilation. Vine compilation, before it ends, or starts anew from January, that is. Samesame, but different Vines, as always. What seems eternal is ever changing, if one carefully follows. Most do not. Sam R does. Again and again. Keeping morsels of time [and space(s)] alive, somehow. Paraphrasing a Text for Nothing by Sam B… Enjoy the Vine compilation about nothing, really. Just time passing, sort of, in places. Sam R. goes there, and brings back tangible audio-visual memories. [Vine Compilation # 14, 760MB, Quicktime/mov, Vimeo]

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 experiencing Epoché

 " There is an experience in which it is possible for us to come to the world with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand; it is the experience of astonishment. The “knowing” we have in this experience stands in stark contrast to the “knowing” we have in our everyday lives, where we come to the world with theory and “knowledge” in hand, our minds already made up before we ever engage the world. However, in the experience of astonishment, our everyday “knowing,” when compared to the “knowing” that we experience in astonishment, is shown up as a pale epistemological imposter and is reduced to mere opinion by comparison.

The phenomenological reduction is at once a description and prescription of a technique that allows one to voluntarily sustain the awakening force of astonishment so that conceptual cognition can be carried throughout intentional analysis, thus bringing the “knowing” of astonishment into our everyday experience. It is by virtue of the “knowing” perspective generated by the proper performance of the phenomenological reduction that phenomenology claims to offer such a radical standpoint on the world phenomenon; indeed, it claims to offer a perspective that is so radical, it becomes the standard of rigor whereby every other perspective is judged and by which they are grounded... "

Having condensed (and somewhat expanded) some recent captured suspended opera footage, Sam Rensiew concoted a bout of phenomenological reduction with some Husserlian paraphrasing on the post View the rigor by cliking on the icon above. [patafilm # 874, 03'23'', 63MB, Quicktime/mov, vimeo]

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 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 the whole and On the parts

"There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and voodlers…Cretins don’t even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble…Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation…Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent…Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says that all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, therefore cats bark…Morons will occasionally say something that’s right, but they say it for the wrong reason…A Voodler is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has logic, however twisted it may be. The voodler on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits or recetly vine videos. For him, everything proves everything else. The voodler is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his voodlings. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up Jean-Luc Godard …There are voodlers who don’t bring up Godard, but those who do are the most insidious. At first they seem normal, then all of a sudden…"

…they produce yet another vine compilation" As does Sam Renseiw, paraphrasing Umberto Eco the great (RIP)…"Who said that peace derives from the contemplation of order, order understood, enjoyed, realized without residuum, in joy and triumph, the end of effort? All is clear, limpid; the eye rests on the whole and on the parts and sees how the parts have conspired to make the whole; it perceives the center where the lymph flows, the breath, the root of the whys...." Enjoy the latest Renseiw vine- compilation, captured in tiny audio-visual chunks the past 6 months. [vinecompilation # 11, 26'37'', 957 MB, quicktime/mov, also on vimeo.]

On link procrastination(s)

 “Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.”

 I know. I did promise. I did. I would re-upload most of the past decade of lumiere(s) and patafilm voodles, after the Blip'ish demise. I managed about 180, so far. Meaning: 2005 and 2006 are ascessible on the blog, as are most of the past 3 years patafilm(s). That leaves about 680 re-links. It is on the way… If you find non working links in the in-between, try see if they might be on archive.org (sam patafilm/lumiere #(s) as in the posts texts) 

In the mean time: thank you so much for following the work (somehow, somewhere in theses times of multiple platforms. Yet: the voodles look great on iphones and ipadminis, even the oldest ones. Try. A happy, prosperous and hopefully peaceful 2016 to all of you from your's sincerely: Sam R. (new year 15 voodle, 00' 50'', 33 MB, quicktime/mov /Vimeo)

On islands of calibrated form & duration(s)

 “But, then, I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind, however simple, which does not change every moment, since there is no consciousness without memory, and no continuation of a state without the addition, to the present feeling, of the memory of past moments. It is this which constitutes duration. Inner duration is the continuous life of a memory which prolongs the past into the present, the present either containing within it in a distinct form the ceaselessly growing image of the past, or, more profoundly, showing by its continual change of quality the heavier and still heavier load we drag behind us as we grow older. Without this survival of the past into the present there would be no duration, but only instantaneity.”   …  “The world is not a solid continent of facts sprinkled by a few lakes of uncertainties, but a vast ocean of uncertainties speckled by a few islands of calibrated and stabilized forms”

While quoting both Bergson and Latour, Renseiw uploaded his latest visual concoction: a precise(ly) timed and crafted docu-voodle investigating in pataphysical manner(s) the Actor-Network theory and its repercussions in duration fields. View the assemblage by cliking on the icon above. [patafilm # 872, 04'41'', 168MB, Quicktime/mov, Vimeo.com/archive.org]

On the metaphysics of compilations

 "Thus, then, are compilations produced; all other productions are called 'Vine-makings'. And all makings proceed either from art or from a faculty or from thought. Some of them happen also spontaneously or by luck just as natural products sometimes do; for there also the same things sometimes are produced without seed as well as from seed."…"The question might be raised, why some things are produced spontaneously as well as by art, e.g. health, while others are not, e.g. a house. The reason is that in some cases the matter which governs the production in the making and producing of any work of art, and in which a part of the product is present,-some matter is such as to be set in motion by itself and some is not of this nature, and of the former kind some can move itself in the particular way required, while other matter is incapable of this; for many things can be set in motion by themselves but not in some particular way, e.g. that of dancing. The things, then, whose matter is of this sort, e.g. stones, cannot be moved in the particular way required, except by something else, but in another way they can move themselves-and so it is with fire. Therefore some things will not exist apart from some one who has the art of making them, while others will; for motion will be started by these things which have not the art but can themselves be moved by other things which have not the art or with a motion starting from a part of the product."..."Therefore, as in syllogisms, substance is the starting-point of everything. It is from 'what a thing is' that syllogisms start; and from it also we now find processes of production to start."

While pondering on the sheer volume of the accumulated Vines from spring and sommer 2015, Sam Renseiw compiled the lot into one MegaVoodle, while paraphrasing part 8 of book VII of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Enjoy the lenghty compilation of max 6'' visual bites from - Hamburg, Kalkriese, Münster, Düsseldorf, Essen, Köln, Hombroich, Copenhagen, Bergen, Faxe Ladeplads, Ll.Elmue, Præstø, Nice, Rochebrune, Venice, Burano, by cliking on the above or on this link. [vinecompilation # 10, 47'58'', 1.2GB, quicktime/mov, Vimeo]

On voodling a(s) spectacle

 "The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and beyond dispute. All it says is: "Everything that appears is good; whatever is good will appear." The attitude that it demands in principle is the same passive acceptance that it has already secured by means of its seeming incontrovertibility, and indeed by its monopolization of the realm of appearances."

 "Voodling is the antithesis of quotation, of a theoretical authority invariably tainted if only because it has become quotable, because it is now a fragment torn away from its context, from its own movement, and ultimately from the overall frame of reference of its period and from the precise option that it constituted within that framework. Voodling, by contrast, is the fluid language of antiideology. It occurs within a type of communication aware of its inability to enshrine any inherent and definitive certainty. This language is inaccessible in the highest degree to confirmation by any earlier or supracritical reference point. On the contrary, its internal coherence and its adequacy in respect of the practically possible are what validate the ancient kernel of truth that it restores. Voodling founds its cause on nothing but its own truth as critique at work in the present." 

Paraphrasing Debord (again), Sam Renseiw post a short moment of voodled spectacle, resuming the visual body-space-morphology investigations, further speculating on the various nature(s) of Open-Form manifestations. [patafilm # 871b, 68MB, 01'59'', quicktime/mov]

Me and I & (most) winter-Vines

 

“Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise[…]Don't wait to be sure. Move, Voodle, move, Vine.”

Paraphrasing July - no one belongs here more than you - Renseiw finally compiled this long winter Vine footage into one, six_second_staccato glide, lasting for about half an hour, complete with diegetic sound; From January 1st to April 7th 2015. With some re-currences, the footage becomes a precise (personal) diary, albeit discretely missing (in direct imagery) some of the mosts shattering events during the period. [RIP: Finn Nørgaad ferbruary 14th and Ais Winther Jensen-april 7th: two friends gone, now greatly missed] (Vinecompilation # 9, 29'53'', 1.2GB, Quicktime/mov)