HYEJI NAM HILDE KROHN HUSE JESSICA LEACH IVANA FILIP RACHELLE BEAUDOIN KAREN PIDDINGTON KATYA GROKHOVSKY JEANNETTE CASTIONI JOJO TAYLOR NADJA VERENA MARCIN w o m e n INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S CINEMA S P E C I A L E D I T I O N Ivana Filip
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Contents 04 How to Undress In Front Of Your Husband 26 Open Day 58 Life Full of Holes 86 Bad Woman 108 Not only do slugs understand the value of humour... 140 Untitled 164 CAT ZEN GARDEN 190 Code Red 206 Comment Down Below 228 Play With Me Nadja Verena Marcin Jojo Taylor Jeannette Castioni Katya Grokhovsky Karen Piddington Rachelle Beaudoin Ivana Filip Jessica Leach Hilde Krohn Huse Hyeji Nam
Hello Nadja and welcome to : we would like to introduce you to our readers with a couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training and after having earned your Diploma in Visual Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Münster, you attended An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] independent studies with John Bock in Berlin and then you moved to the United States to nurture your education with a MFA of Visual Arts, that you received from the prestigious Columbia University, in New York City. How did these experiences address your artistic research? Moreover, does your cultural background inform the way you relate yourself to art making in general? I actually attended many more Art schools: NadjaVerenaMarcin Women Cinemakers meets Lives and works in New York, USA and NRW, Germany In “How to Undress In Front Of Your Husband” I replicate a misogynist 1940s “How to” short, depicting the do’s and don’ts of female disrobing, subverting the original video's authoritarian male gaze into a humorous self-reflective statement on the status quo of women in society. Recreating the short in great detail, I play both characters 'the good and the bad woman', confronting the original's patriarchal narrator with delightful self-awareness. Disrupting the original's dangerous ideology, the video-performance highlights the absurdity of its creation in the first place but also points at prevailing truths on gender inequality. “At the core, I aim to express that the full world of gender and the breadth of its expression has the potential to exist within one person, and that person is also the almighty oppressor or oppressed—depending on how we want to see it.”
Women Cinemakers Bauhaus University in Weimar, Villa Arson - École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts in Nice, University of Art Berlin, Academy of Fine Arts in Münster, HEAD - Geneva School of Art and Design and OTIS in Los Angeles. In addition, Prof. John Bock mentored me over the course of three years and I finally attend the School of the Visual Arts at Columbia University in New York; temporarily bound to a system, understanding the locality of politics and the mille plateau of the world. Born as a secondary generation immigrant to a Slovakian father and a German mother, my parents also represent two systems of the world - one that is highly individualized, capitalist and egocentric, and another one that is all about communal power, land and hardship. Whilst growing up in my thinking, I was somewhat “off”, a good portion. Nowadays, I go back and forth between the US, Germany and Bolivia. The temporary geographical location provides my curiosity with a home. You are an eclectic artist and your versatile practice ranges from video and performance art to installations, photography and drawing, revealing the ability of crossing from a media to another: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit in order to get a synoptic idea about your artistic production: would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do you select a medium in order to explore a particular theme? Fascinated by plays, books and movies, I started drawing as child and writing as teenager. My father bought a video camera and I taught myself how to use it with fourteen. Nowadays - when I work with professional actors, photographers or DP’s, it still has this playful feel. My friends don’t match at a birthday party, and so does my artwork. There is a mix of low and high aesthetics that lend significance. The personal, intimate, naïve and playful mode goes along with high-end, elaborate, filmic imagery. Like a game I have rules for each medium. For example, my drawings - all they need is to exist, as much as writing comes deliberately. These prompt gestures, their simplicity, gives birth to ideas. When I produce a performance, I use these ideas and spend time re-contextualizing them like characters on a chessboard – thinking about stage, emotional architecture, reversed gaze, dynamics of audience confrontation and how politics shift with subversion. It all leads to the
Women Cinemakers final live moment in which I push traditional parameters and engagement the viewer as participant. For this special edition of we have selected , an extremely interesting experimental video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the attempt women's identity is the way your stimulating of the idea behind the original movie creates such a powerful of male gaze on women’s representation. While walking our readers through of , would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? My video is a scene-to-scene recreation of the original a 1937 short comedic film directed by the "father of modern exploitation” Dwain Esper. The original film was made in the early days of the first consumer cameras and explains how these became a propaganda tool for peeping at the women inside of
Women Cinemakers their gendered domestic and public practice. Further, by representing it on film, manifesting and enforcing their roles. In my scene-to-scene recreation, the most significant difference is that I embody all the characters: Barry and Trixie, the good and the bad housewives: The epiphany of perfection and chaos. In both roles I am transparently imperfect – like a test dummy. After all, the underlying message is that one person embodies all inside of a fragmented media universe. I chose this video because it speaks about the creation of the camera as tool and it moving to the inside of domestic settings, it's "peeping Tom" quality attributed to male directing. We have deeply appreciated the way your work criticizes the women's identity in our globalized still patriarchal and male-oriented age. Not to mention that these days almost everything, from Maurizio Cattelan's ' to Marta Minujín's ' ', could be considered , do you think that could be considered a , in a certain sense? In particular, do you think that your being a woman provides your artistic research with some ? In the video-performance
Women Cinemakers I examine the effects of genderbiased education and standardized behavioral norms for both females and males. This project hones in on permitted roles, power hierarchies, and the residue left on society today. As we aspire to live in a century of gender fluidity – we need to look back at the roots of cultural behaviors and the generation that educated and equipped us. Through the video, women are reminded to be cautiously aware that every second of their life is subject to a patriarchal framework - one that produces male power hierarchies, and pressure of accumulating capital as the financial successor. This still haunts us women today and is also enforced by our matriarchal predecessors. Displaying sweetness, politeness, kindness, and willingness to satisfy society, both sexually and socially, was and is still feminine in high demand. Inside the box of her gender, the woman can easily obtain success by bringing pleasure. The man is still the maker of the financial and social standing, responsible for the wife’s ability to be pleasant, mannered, childbearing, and nurturing. Instead of engaging with her at a human level, inside the video he is kept in the distance as the possessively longing spy - a relationship with equal opinions and shared conflicts proving unsuccessful. We have appreciated the way recreates the characters of Trixie and Miss Barry and we have found particularly captivating the way you have created such that provide your practice of highlighting , providing the result of your artistic research with such a consistent cinematographic quality. How did you structured your video in order to disrupting its original ‘educational’ trajectory, unveiling its grotesque absurdity? For my reenactment and the new version I performed all roles that appear in the original film. From the perfect wife to the undesirable wife , I am bending my characters with signifiers such as simulation of clothing, demeanor, and improvisation. At the core, I aim to express that the full world of gender and the breadth of its expression has the potential to exist within one person, and that person is also the almighty oppressor or oppressed – depending on how we want to see it. Through the production of stage, props, choice of clothing, and the way of my actions and improvised symbiosis with the original, I examine the notion of surreal exception – or almighty
A still from
Women Cinemakers consciousness – intervening in the retro looking set location of the glamorous Metropolitan Building. By using the original voice of the authoritarian narrator, which could never be reproduced nowadays, the reading between history and our times becomes evident. The resulting creation of discomfort within the entertaining qualities of the video speaks to its actuality and agenda. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you aim . An interesting aspect of your practice is the fact that you are concerned in making the viewers aware of your process: this is particularly clear in the interesting and we find this decision particularly interesting since it seems to reveal that you do not want to limit yourself to trigger the audience perceptual parameters, but that you aim to address the viewers . Are you particularly interested in structuring your work in order to urge the viewers to elaborate ? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?
Women Cinemakers I drastically combine and subvert relatable ideas for the viewer to become participant. My intent is to provide with questions, and I choose the confrontational method to create a lively forum and leave decisions up to the audience who is triggered into an emotional response – an experience. For instance, live performances like or are inside of an open exhibition area to allow the audience to enter and leave, as they wish. It’s an adventure, a blind date with people of different backgrounds and expectations. I honor their presence. At last, they complete the artwork. We have deeply appreciated the way explores , featuring such captivating inquiry into the grammar of body language to create a kind of involvement with the viewers that touches not only the emotional sphere, but also and especially the intellectual one. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that "it is always only a matter
Women Cinemakers ": how do you consider the relation between of the issues that you explore and of creating your artworks? A In my performances my idea becomes my destiny. It has a time, a place, a particular motivation – the action inscribes onto my body, my feelings, my thoughts, my experience. It is about existence, presence. Gerhard Richter’s work is about absence that seeks presence. In my work, my presence is provided within a selfless framework. I become the , channeling universal ideas, as phenomena. It’s incredible how we have this ability to switch between body or mind, to link and separate. I conflate things that make me wonder and embody my question to produce response. Over the years your work has been presented internationally and your videos have been included in worldwide film festivals: one of the hallmarks of your practice is the ability to establish with the viewers, who urged to from a condition of mere spectatorship. So we would like to pose a question about the nature . Do you consider ? And what do you hope to in the spectatorship? In 2014, I presented the video at Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte in Dortmund. My long-time friend, the designer, Claudia Kaase came to visit. The video was inside of a large, wide and low screening space, very immersive. Claudia stood there for a while and didn’t move. At some point I approached her and saw tears in her eyes, she noticed and then smiled back at me. An earlier point in my career, in 2004, I participated inside the festival of Film und Multimedia in Dresden in Germany. I showed - a piece in which my face forefronts the screen. Like a cat, I lick vanilla pudding off a plate. My body is mostly hidden but nude – it’s grotesque, funny, disturbing and weird. An older woman got furious, she searched for me and yelled at me - stating it is dehumanizing for a woman. As participant, it took me a longer time to understand what happens at each performance and within each audience reaction. Nowadays, I understand that people’s psychological reactions
are part of the work. They are as important as the work itself, but I cannot judge or consume them. I have strong reasons for every action. I believe that there is a highly constructive and positive potential, both hidden and visible. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in the contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something 'uncommon', however in the last decades women are finding their voices in art: how would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? To me, producing art was and is a balancing act. I am in need of protection – I feel ashamed, fearful and bad at times. By now these shadows are familiar, I overcome them with the pride of acceptance and gaining relevance. Just as life, being an women is a rollercoaster: What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger - that’s my risk, my joy and how I feel free. And the future - it is absolutely female!! Why? It’s a simple equation: there is a lack and a demand. We are just starting to explore the wide terrain of women made identity. Women made pictures. Women politics. Women made science, art and philosophy, leadership. It’s a world in constant metamorphosis towards feminine qualities, values. I am delighted to witness it and to be active within. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Nadja. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Next my project is coming to Europe and to Bolivia - in which I pay homage to the Shakespearean noble figure, . investigates the relationship between the human destruction of the biosphere, and the history of female hysteria, while speaking to the democratizing power of the meme. In a live performance and video installation I re-imagine as an embodiment of our human subjectivity within the framework of gender inequality and climate change - quoting John Everett Millais’s painting from 1852-1, by Daniil Kharms and by Jeff Koons. Women Cinemakers
Following the US tour to CONTEXT Art Miami as special project and part of the Art Basel Miami Art Week' 17, as headliner of the New Ear Festival' 18 of Fridman Gallery in New York and, most recently, at San Francisco's Minnesota Street Project' 18, will now travel to Europe and Bolivia. The European premiere will take place with a live performance and solo exhibition at Moltekerei e.V. in Cologne, Germany as part of the DC Open Gallery Weekend from September 6 to 22, 2018, awarded with a grant of Kulturamt of Cologne. Afterwards will be shown as sitespecific video-installation and solo exhibition at Nube Gallery in Santa Cruz in Bolivia from September 25 to October 26, 2018, accompanied by a workshop at Centro Cultural Simón I. Patiño Santa Cruz and a Masterclass at Faculty of Arts of the State University UAGRM. In Europe, the next live performance and solo exhibition will be held at AlbumArte in Rome in Italy, curated by Giulia Casalini from November 14 to December 21, 2018. In the year of 2019, travels to museum SCHAUWERK of SCHAUFFLER Foundation in Sindelfingen in Germany from February 10 to June 30, 2019 and to the Art Pavillion for a one week festival on eco-feminism curated by Giulia Casalini and Arts Feminism Queer in London, United Kingdom from Women Cinemakers
April 1 to 9, 2019. The final presentation will take place in Berlin in October 2019. Parallel, I am working on my first feature film exploring the lost values of a contemporary world and the search for ancient wisdom via the mise-en-abyme of hypermodern New York and neo-baroque Santa Cruz in Bolivia. Based on an autobiographic love story blending with the Telenovela genre and performance art, I will transform myself into NATASCHA who falls in love with LEONARDO, and rehearse my memories inside of the seven episodes of the film. The film explores the paradox of interracial and intercultural love - more than typical in my generation of globetrotting Millenials, in which personal affection succumbs the weight of belonging to a strict born into belief system. This increasing blur between the role of heritage, search and transformation is distinct to the new generations; it reflects a growing trend, expediting in the age of globalization. The film will span the period of current geopolitical conflicts involving borders, race, ideology, internationalism, globalization, immigration, and media—suspending the world on a political tightrope. Women Cinemakers
Open Day is a stimulating experimental film by London based filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist Jojo Taylor: An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] inquiring into the relationship between our inner sphere and the outside reality, she demonstrates the ability to capture the subtle depths of emotions. This captivating film offers an emotionally charged visual experience, inviting the viewers to capture the nature of the human condition in our unstable and media driven contemporary Jojo Taylor Women Cinemakers meets Jojo is a multi disciplinary artist predominately working in film, performance, sound and singing. She is drawn to that which is encountered as mysterious. A common link and driving force in her work is her obsession with keeping things alive by uncovering, resurrecting or immortalising them, whether that involves preserving a memory, a story or a belief. The main focus of her research is altered states of consciousness, including hallucinations, seizures, out of body experiences, hysterics and grief. Her work is shaped by the unique stories and interviews she collects, as she re-imagines these characters and stories and their intense emotions into art works. The resulting work attempts to magnify the sometimes bizarre nature of these events in a fragmented narrative, often possessing a dreamscape quality. Sound plays a major role in her practice. She composes melodies, writes lyrics, expresses narrative through voiceovers, uses looping pedals, ‘plays’ objects and body parts and collaborates with musicians. Jojo is interested in the power of the scream: The mouth as an amplifier for any emotion to come out and affect others, through a performative act. She herself is utilised as an instrument by other performers, as she pushes her vocal techniques to their limits At times the vocals are distorted as she is slapped around the face and voice box to change the vocal sounds and create a new language. She travels through and activates the space-holding onto notes to the point where her body reacts, discovering how far she can extend herself physically. Jojo directs films and designs and makes costumes, masks, props and sculptures for them. She uses film because it allows her to incorporate a wide range of methods in one piece of work. For Jojo, performance, sound and film have the ability to bring stories ‘alive’ more faithfully than other medium because she feels they capture the nature of the human condition. Costumed characters feature alongside sped up voiceovers in some of her films, to create a strange quality, that sits somewhere between childhood and adulthood. Fantastical costumes have become a hallmark of her work and she favours unusual aspects of a building or location sometimes playing sound pieces within a stairwell to transform the space, recognising that sound can be more visual than something which is meant to be looked at. Jojo is intrigued by the psychological impact of sound and for its ability to make familiar places unfamiliar and vice versa. She attempts to harness its affective qualities within her work. Her work explores how situations can be unpredictable and all encompassing, bringing the private emotions and sounds of past events into the public realm.
Women Cinemakers age: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Taylor's multifaceted artistic production. We are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Taylor's multifaceted artistic production. Hello Jojo and welcome to WomenCinemakers: we would like to invite our readers to visit and we would like to introduce you to our readers with a couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a MA in Fine Art, that you received from the prestigious Central Saint Martins and achieved a distinction: how did this experience influence your evolution as an artist? Being an artist can at times be a solitary profession. There is so much planning, researching and unseen work involved and creating pieces can take a long time. This isolating aspect of being creative can mean you have little input from or connection with other professionals. This changes dramatically when you study. At the point of applying for my Masters at Central Saint Martins (CSM), I had no way of funding it. But I sensed it was absolutely the right time. I needed a fresh perspective and professional feedback in order to move my work forward. Thankfully I was awarded The South Square Trust Scholarship. I spent two intensive years studying and I did not want to walk out the same artist that I had walked in. I arrived with total commitment and an open mind: to see things differently, take criticism and change for the better. I really enjoyed my time there. My personal tutor was the artist Nooshin Farhid, her experience in making films and dedication as a tutor had an enormously positive impact on my work. Her advice was invaluable and I have no doubt that I have become a better artist because of it. I found that I pushed beyond my comfort zone and this is when the real results and shifts in my practice happened. Whilst studying I began my research into altered states of consciousness. I conducted confidential interviews with people about interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers their experiences which included hallucinations, sleep disorders, out of body experiences, addictions, seizures, reaching enlightenment through meditation and suffering grief. Some of these stories were incredibly moving, all were deeply fascinating. They provided a unique set of research topics on which to base my practice. I wanted to create work that re-imagines these events through film, performance, sound and songs. My experiences at CSM have encouraged me to take more risks within my work and explore new forms and strategies. My work has become more complex and rigorous through my research. I am now more confident and able to take on more challenging projects and execute them successfully. My experience at CSM also led me to take a more collaborative approach to my practice, which means at times my work relies heavily on working with others. The role of performers, musicians, as well as other artists and film makers are an important part of my practice. The Mercers Award was very important for the development of my work after graduation. It supported me financially and enabled me to keep the momentum of the kind of practice I developed during my study at CSM. I am currently one of four artists in residence at The Lifeboat residency. I have set myself the task to work on one new idea during each visit to the studio. I realise that this is a demanding task; I either have to work spontaneously or prepare enough materials such as props/costumes and gather ideas in between each visit to the studio. The work I produce either at the studio or elsewhere are later developed into different forms, manifesting as sound pieces, films, photographs or live performance. They can exist in many different ways. Moreover, does your cultural background address your artistic research? interview
I grew up in a multicultural medieval market town in the U.K. where for generations many of my ancestors also lived. (Before we get too idyllic here, I grew up on a council estate not in a castle!) I have no doubt that certain aspects of my cultural background influence my artistic practice to this day. My grandmother on my father’s side was Irish and as a child I was so struck by the stories of Banshees and ghosts that in the end she had to tell me ‘It’s the living you need to be afraid of not the dead.’ I am not sure that this helped with the fear factor-rather it added a new dimension and begged the question, ’WHY?’. My mother fuelled this interest by buying my brother and I books on unexplained phenomenon. Mysteries of the unexplained has always been a key interest and it just never went away. In respect of my interest in music, when I was growing up my grandfather formed a family ‘Kurplunk’ band We would march throughout the house military style, playing any objects we could lay our hands on. I favoured swaying a metal biscuit tin containing marbles and striking a cheese grater with a spoon. We liked to laugh and laugh we did. My father used to dress up and take on a different personamy ‘long lost aunt Lucy from Australia’, even the hairy chest did not give him away!
Some years later-once I finally realised it was my father I found it fascinating that anyone can become someone else and take on a different identity. Growing up I also loved to explore unusual buildings and locations: burnt out houses, ruins, even an open-air theatre. I can see a connection between my background and my artistic practice, the influences are still there. For this special edition of we have selected , an extremely interesting experimental film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. Inquiring into the blurry boundary between reality and imagination, your film escapes from traditional narrative form to pursue a sensorial richness rare in contemporary cinema: when walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? There was a huge variety of elements at work when Open Day came into being. I had a collection of stories regarding altered states of consciousness, that I felt were crying out to be made into a film. Such strong emotions and qualities were carried in these events-bravery, fear, a sense of euphoria,
Women Cinemakers confusion or deep, deep sadness. Some of the events were truly bizarre and macabre in nature. At this time I was researching Affect Theory and was interested in the visceral feelings that art can give the viewer: A song that makes your hair stand on end, a film that makes you shudder. That sort of thing. I knew I wanted to somehow combine film, sound, song and performance. I had seen Ragnar Kjartansson’s film installation called The Visitors and found that a sense of melancholic togetherness exuded from the piece and into the environment; working on the audience. It was available for any of its viewers to get attuned to and tap into its power. I felt it dealt with what it is to be human and this allowed it to transcend the confines of the gallery walls and sit itself into my mind to such a degree that I was barely able to tear myself away and when I did it lived on as a strong memory, such is the power of art. With the after affects of The Visitors and a little music theory in mind, I went to my studio armed with a looping pedal, microphone and an amp, and recorded layer upon layer of vocal melodies that I made up spontaneously. As they repetitively mingled and entwined I found that I got lost in their call. It is this very feeling that I was researching, what Catherine Clement calls Syncope: Moments when one loses one sense of self. I had the intention to push the work to its limit by including different elements such as the repetitive vocal melodies and the sound of played objects which are evident in the sound design for Open Day. Ideas bubble up to the surface from a place I have jokingly started to call H.Q. (Head Quarters!) They do this in their own time-at anytime and in any (often inconvenient) place: I remember waking at 3.00am one morning. I had it in my mind that I wanted to travel through and activate a space whilst singing. I started to recall some of the stories I had collected and was particularly thinking about the one involving grief, as I lay there for some hours I started to piece together an idea of pushing my friend, the artist interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview Metra Saberova, through a space in an old fashioned perambulator. I called her later that morning and we started rehearsing that day. I studiously recorded every practice so I could review what worked. I was picking up some lovely aerial shots and close-up ‘coffin’ shots as Metra was being pushed slowly across the screen and it wasn’t initially obvious she was in a prambulator. This gave me some really strong ideas and camera angles that I wanted to include in the film. It became clear to me whilst studying the rehearsal footage, the visuals and the vocals, that what started off sounding ‘siren-like’, became reminiscent of a call to prayer. I felt that the piece could benefit from carefully choreographed movements, perhaps travelling at a slow pace, gradually unraveling and allowing the vocals to expand into each nook and cranny, crack and crevice, perfect for the setting, with the haunting quality of a lullaby. I seek to push my interest in sound further by using different vocal techniques, going beyond the conventions of singing into the realm of distortion. In Open Day my vocal chords are manipulated by another performer slapping me around the face and tapping on my voice box to change my vocal sounds, creating a new language. In terms of influence, I had been watching Sergei Parajanovs film The Colour of Pomegrantes, which I find absolutley spell binding through its visual complexity. Equally inspiring is Meredith Monk’s The Quarry and her vocal work that possess no words and conveying meaning and feeling through melody. I was also researching Pina Bausch, Matthew Barney, John Cage and Marina Abramovic, so there were plenty of influences at play whilst sketching out my ideas. Several characters were created directly from interviewees experiences: The Skywalkers developed from a story regarding an out of body experience, so there are two identical costumed women with white, porcelain looking faces and orange hair, trying to work out how to rejoin. Open Day was shot in approximately 40 hours over a few days. I had heard about the building becoming vacant and about a week after asking for location permission it was granted but I had no one to perform in the
Women Cinemakers film. I assembled a great team of amazing friends willing to take part, only one of whom had performed before. I was up against ridiculous deadlines and working very long hours in between shooting to prepare. I value working with others and some of the films that I have directed are reliant on other people’s input and skills. It really is a team effort. Craig Maret is exceptional in his film making and editing skills and right from the off when I was explaining my vision for the film he totally understood what I was looking for in the aesthetic. It was very important to be on the same wave length. Everything that could go right did go right. Even though we were under enormous time pressure. When working to such tight deadlines in such close proximity everything becomes inextricably interconnected. Open Day would not be what it is without the contribution of others; those behind the stories, behind the scenes, behind the camera and performing. It was a most amazing experience. Elegantly shot, Open Day features stunning cinematography by Craig Maret and a keen eye for details: each shot of is carefully orchestrated to work within the overall structure, balancing realism to expressionism: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? Given the nature of the stories that I wanted to re imagine, I aimed to create a dream like landscape, with fragmented narrative. Using high angles and close ups with some tight details of the finger nails on the outside of the gloves or the subtlety of the air going into my mouth in the closing scene. Also important was to capture the buildings intricacies in some of the wider shots. For the crescendo near the end I wanted the cast to walk around the king post (the central vertical pillar of the building) and capture the sense of characters finally uniting in one scene. The buildings visual qualities lent itself to the unsettling feeling I was seeking. I was keen to start the film outside to set the context and present a sense of being drawn into an interview
Women Cinemakers
A still from
Women Cinemakers alternative reality occupied by characters participating in seemingly disconnected and unexplained activities I aimed to give the viewer the sensations and feelings that are described in some of the stories of altered states of consciousness; confusion, disconnection, uncertainty about what is happening, anticipation for what will happen or attempting to make sense of it all. Craig set the lighting to capture the shadows and the ethereal feel that I wanted, taking onboard my concept he contributed his experience, technical knowledge and expertise to help create the shots and angles. He suggested doing some locked off shots so we could have more choice in the editing process. Craig chose a mid-budget production camera and shot with zoom lenses to save time rather than primes. I hoped to capture a surreal, sometimes slightly macabre inner world, where the viewer can experience a duality of emotions. We have highly appreciated the way challenges the audience's perceptual parameters to explore the struggle between reality and dreamlike dimension, your film provides the viewers them with a unique multilayered visual experience: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination within your process? This is an interesting question that I often ask myself. My ideas often arrive when I feel like I am suspended in some sort of dreamspace and my mind is clutter free. It is here that I am able to access creativity and conjure up a whole manner of artistic ideas. Last night alone, I got out of bed three times to record ideas that had come to me during the night; a melody for a bass, some lyrics and a vocal melody. I don’t know where exactly it is that they spring from, I am just grateful that they do, and in abundance. Then there are the rare but eventful and extraordinary moments when something unexplainable occurs. Like the time my mother spoke to me. On the surface of it, this sounds perfectly normal, but she had been dead for several years! I know this must sound strange, but what is even more incredible is that I told this to one of my brothers, who then revealed that he too had been spoken to by our mother at a similar time. We can’t make any sense of this or explain it, we have no idea what happened. But these kind of experiences are some of the very phenomena that drive my practice, no matter if they are real or imagined, in any case, they are better to remain unknown. I allow myself to explore different realities; as an artist I don’t have boundaries that stifle my work or prevent me from explore my ideas freely without any limitation. I continue to be fascinated by these in between spaces that are on the threshold of reality and imagination. I am interested in what Meredith Monk calls working in between the cracks of reality. These ‘places’ we go to are what makes us human-I mean haven’t we all felt lost? Lost within ourselves, out of control, or as if we have momentarily disappeared from our own body? Don’t we experience life through various states and have abiding memories of a time that something we saw, an action we took, or a sound we heard, had such an impact on us that the affect sent chills down our spine? I am interested in what it is to be human with all its facets, including the moments when the unexpected or unexplained occur. I open up an arena for these topics to unravel via my practice. Some interviewees tell me that they can recall their event and it is almost as powerful and palpable as the actual moment it happened.
Women Cinemakers Rich of allegoric qualities, your work orchestrates a visionary tale, with references perceptual world, and as you have remarked once, is based on real life stories of altered states of consciousness, including out of body experiences, grief and hallucination: how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Does daily life works as a starting point for your artistic research? I take in as much inspiration as possible from everyday life, specifically since attending Anthony Howell’s performance workshops. I can see a performance in just about anything I witness on a daily basis. As I have mentioned, I can get ideas at the most inopportune moments. I have to take a pen and recording device pretty much everywhere I go and last week I had to jump out of the swimming pool to record an idea. Two nights ago I had the most strangest dream and I am definitely going to use that in something. If I am in a particularly sad moment in my life I seem to be able to write the best lyrics. Other ideas seem to take a while to filter through. Sound plays a crucial role in your film and in your artistic practice in general: marked with captivating minimalistic quality, the soundtrack provides the footage of with such an unsettling and atmosphere: as an experimental composer, how do you consider the relationship between sound and moving images? For me the decisions around sound are as important as the considerations of the visual aspect of a film. Sound is incredibly powerful, as is silence. In the right environment sound can be more powerful than something which is meant to be looked at. I went through many different versions of sound design before reaching the final piece. I hear music in nearly every object, to the extent that I can walk down the stairwell and as I hold onto the bannister I hear the creak it makes and realise I must record it immediately for future use. interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers