Ve znaku (In the Sign) - Jaromír Typlt

If there's one thing I really like about the internet, it got to be the possibility and speed in how we can 'meet' and collaborate with people everywhere.

Throught the fiber I 'met' Jaromír Typlt.
At a certain point we started to write about poetry and videopoems and the possibility of working together.
On his website there were English translations of some of his poems.
We decided on one of them;      

Ve znaku

LK

Probudilo mě něco v páteři.
Propnutí
až nadoraz ke zprolámání,
hrozná bolest, musel jsem z toho prorazit ven:
už ani luk
ani kniha

ani kniha
ani luk
už se to nedalo dál snášet.

Zvednul jsem se,
chvíli tak na posteli v polospánku

dokud se v tom mi nepodařilo rozpoznat.
Luk a kniha?

Luk
se ohýbal a napínal a šlo mu to konečně hladce
bez lámání.

Hřbet knihy
se konečně nerozpadal
a udržel rozevření na kterékoliv stránce.

A bolest se pomalu rozpouštěla,
jak to tak zapadalo do sebe,
za chvíli jsem se mohl položit
a znovu klidně usnout.

Na obratle jsem za celou tu dobu
ani nepomyslel.

Ze sborníku k 90. narozeninám Ludvíka Kundery (2010)

In the Sign

Something in the spine awoke me.
Stretching
At full throttle till the breaking point,
Awful ache, I had to break through:
Neither the bow
Nor the book

Neither the book
Nor the bow
It couldnʼt be brooked any longer.

 

I heaved,
A while on the bed in half-sleep

 

Until I managed to recognize myself therein.
The bow and the book?

 

The bow
Bent and drew, smoothly, at last,
Without breaking.

 

The bookʼs binding
Didnʼt fall apart, at last,
Holding together openings on all pages.

 

The ache dissolved, slowly,
As it all fit together,
In a while I could lay myself down,
And fall asleep peacefully.

 

Throughout, the vertebrae
werenʼt given a single thought.

 

The "L. K." dedication is meant for the poet and translator
Ludvík Kundera (1920-2010)
Both initial characters of his name are the initial characters of two
keywords of the poem (Luk, Kniha - Bow, Book).
 

Jaromír sent me a recording of the poem in Czech. The translation by David Vichnar (2010) will be used as subtitles.

Listening to his steady voice and reading the translation gave me the idea of working with images of hands and  blank pages.

 

For music I went back to a recording I made earlier:

 

This worked fine with the poem and his voice. It was the music that gave me the final idea for the visuals. I wanted 'flickering' images to go with the 'cuts' in the music.

I filmed different empty pages, inside of books...

These were edited as the 'background' adding different layers of blue.

I combined different tracks with 'pages' together to create the feel of the different pages.

Lines (spines) and flickering colours.

After I made the background I started filming my hands; different poses, gestures (smooth and distorted, gentle, alone and together)
The hands tell a different tale, adding a new dimension to the whole.

 

Take a look for yourself;

 

Words and voice: Jaromír Typlt
Translation: David Vichnar
Concept, camera, editing & music: Swoon