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 voodling at level eight_0.8

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

" The close up is the soul of the voodle. It can be brief because the value of the photogenic is measured in seconds.[...] It imposes a decoupage a thousand times more detailed that of most videos. Even more beautiful than a laugh is a face preparing for it. The mouth which is a bout to speak and holds back, the gesture which hesitates between right and left, the recoil before the leap,and the moment before landing, the becoming, the hesitation, the taut spring, the prelude, and even more than all these, the piano being tuned before the overture. The photogenic is conjugated in the future and in the imperative. It does not allow for stasis. [...] I have never understood motionless close-ups. They sacrifice their essence, which is movement..."

Concluding the very last episode on The Oracle's Boat amazing performance, Sam Renseiw paraphrases Epstein once again, wondering what sort of work the docu-soap actually is, and how the work could , eventually, be labelled, categorised or interpreted. View this last, short episode, in which Sam, curious as always, does indeed trespass boundaries, while close-up voodling climbing a staircase: Click here or on the links above. (patafilm # 715 [The Oracle's Boat/Level: 08/0.8], 01'56'', 28.8MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

On voodling at level eight_0.1

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

" The infamous Oracle has reached her final shore where a last Game will be played to her honour and in the hope of deliverance. Six luckless players will, once again, compete for their life by the mercy of The Masters and the wheels of fortune... Almost 100 years after her disappearance, servants of The Game found a small boat washed up on the Romanian Black Sea shore. In it lay a woman bearing a strong resemblance to The Oracle, who was last seen at the very same place. The boat and its contents were carried to the camp of the Older and the Younger Master of The Game. It was received there by The Game Goddess, The Masters and the weary players with awe and high hopes. Three nights of miraculous occurrences followed. Upon the third morning the Oracle´s body showed the first signs of decomposition and was then devoured by the Goddess of the Game and thus preserved for her final journey."

Entering The Game in a dusty backyard ballroom in Elsinore, Sam Renseiw, carried away, realised the wisdom of introite nam et hic dii sunt : gods do reside in the most peculiar of places. View the first part of Patalab's docu-soap with excerpts of The Oracle's Boat by clicking here, or on the links above. (patafilm # 708, [Oracle's Boat/Level: 08/0.1], 03'43'', 36.7MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)

Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features a quiet, high flying fellow, cruising along. (lum # 218," Jonathan L." 01'00'', 7.3MB, Quicktime/mov)