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 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 Vine as combinatorials

vine compilation # 8

 "Vining is a combinatorial game that pursues the possibilities implicit in its own material… The short video footage captures places the voodler//viner inside a strange loop of production: The so-called personality of the voodler//viner exists within the very act of voodling//vining: it is the product and instrument of the video capturing process. The voodler//viner's creative act becomes one of re-creation, in the sense of both a playful act and a derivative one…" 

Paraphrasing Calvino's "Cybernetic & Ghosts", Sam Renseiw, in a state of calm OCD, ammassed a great deal of short Vines lately. As this end-of-year's treat, enjoy the comprressed, chronological compilation by cliking on the icon above to re-view the undfolding of body-space morphologies. [vinecompilation # 8, 948MB, 27'22'', Quicktime/mov - other versions at blip.tv]

A happy new year to all viewers. More next year.  Best Sam R.

On voodling and the beach man's sandy burden

“Hutte, for instance, used to quote the case of a fellow he called "the beach man." This man had spent forty years of his life on beaches or by the sides of swimming pools, chatting pleasantly with summer visitors and rich idlers. He is to be seen, in his bathing costume, in the corners and backgrounds of thousands of holiday snaps, among groups of happy people, but no one knew his name and why he was there. And no one noticed when one day he vanished from the photographs. I did not dare tell Hutte, but I felt that "the beach man" was myself. Though it would not have surprised him if I had confessed it. Hutte was always saying that, in the end, we were all "beach men" and that "the sand" - I am quoting his own words - "keeps the traces of our footsteps only a few moments.”

Further compiling snipnets of quotidian (obsessive-compulsively, but with a certain research attidude ) Sam Renseiw gathers the latests (short-cut)imagery into the long awaited late-summer / fall vine compilation, feeling like an unspecified "beach man", while paraphrasing Patrick Modiano… Enjoy the extended compression by cliking here or on the image above. (Vinecompilation # 7, 19'29'' 482MG, Quicktime/mov)

On Vining Ad Herennium manner

"Now nature herself teaches us what we should do. When we see in every day life things that are petty, ordinary, and banal, we generally fail to remember them, because the mind is not being stirred by anything novel or marvellous. But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonourable, unusual, great, unbelievable, or ridiculous, that we are likely to remember for a long time. Accordingly, things immediate to our eye or ear we commonly forget; incidents of our childhood we often remember best. Nor could this be so for any other reason than that ordinary things easily slip from the memory while the striking and the novel stay longer in the mind. A sunrise, the sun's course, a sunset are marvellous to no one because they occur daily.

We ought, then, to set up Vines of a kind that can adhere longest in memory. And we shall do so i f we establish similitudes as striking as possible; if we set up images that are not many or vague but active (imagines agentes); if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we ornament some of them, as with crowns or purple cloaks, 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 or smeared with red paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our images, for that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily. The things we easily remember when they are real we likewise remember without difficulty when they are figments. But this will be essential-again and again to run over rapidly in the mind all the original places in order to refresh the images."

Paraphrasing a passage from Ad Herennium, Sam Renseiw compiled an ever growing amount of recent Vines into a nearly half-hour Voodle chronological pêle-mêle of exeptional beauty (also inserted, shorter moments of singular ugliness) for subsequent scrutiny and visual aide-memoire. Enjoy. (Vinecompilation # 6, 24'10'', 601MB, Quicktime/mov, Vimeo)

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 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(!)