The Children Have Lit the Fire

Tsead Bruinja is a poet from The Netherlands. He lives in Amsterdam, but is rooted in Fryslân.
He writes in different languages.
I met him at the last Stanza festival (Thanks to Michaël Vandebril for leading me to him) and was blown away by how beautiful the Frisian language(s) sounds.

After the festival I asked him if I could make a video for one of his Frisian poems.
I made one for;

 DE BERN HA IT FJOER OANSTUTSEN

wy jouwe te folle ljocht tegearre
do en ik tinke dat se ús net sjogge
mar se sjogge ús

lykas besjogge se in himel
fol fallende stjerren op flylân
ein augustus

it is nacht op it eilân langstme
dat skûmkoppen fan ferwyt en ferlet oanfrette
en golle weagen fan belofte sân oansette

de bern ha it fjoer oanstutsen op it strân
it hast op in folwoeksen sûpen set en it oan elkoar bekend

sjogge inoar inoar inoar

ien boat kin my meinimme
mar dêrfoar moat ik slimmer siik wêze
en minder ljocht jaan

ien boat komt net
hoe't ik ek flok

baarnt ôf
op oare weagen

raand goud

de bern ha it fjoer oanstutsen
en wy

wy jouwe tefolle ljocht

Tsead loved the result (Always a joy to hear) and and made me an English translation, so you can enjoy a version with titles.

The Children Have Lit the Fire

we give off too much light together
you and I think they don't see us
but they see us

like they're watching a sky
full of stars falling on Vlieland
end of august

it's night on the island of need
that is eaten away at by crests of reproach and desire
while at the same time generous waves of promise
deposit sand

the children have lit the fire on the beach
boozing it up almost like adults
they confess to each other

see each other each other each other

one boat can take me away from here
but for that I must be sicker
and give off less light

one boat won't come
however I curse

burns down
on other waves

molten gold

the children have started a fire
and we

we give off too much light
Have a look and listen;


Words & Voice: Tsead Bruinja
Concept, Editing & Music: Swoon
Thanks: VFX Footage

Awkword Paper Cut; She Saw & other pieces

This month I will be one of the featured artists on the new online magazine 'Awkword Paper Cut'

A video I made for Meg Tuite featured in their inaugural issue. For this month Michael Dickes (driving force behind APC) gave me a chance to introduce a few recent works and collaborations.

I have sent him 3 video's;
Ve Znaku, my collab with Czech poet Jaromír Typlt,
The Crowning of Jesters, the latest work David Tomaloff and I cooked up
and, brand new, She Saw.

You can read, view and listen to the article on Awkword Paper Cut.
Be sure to also check out Michael's radioshow where he plays the soundtrack and David Tomaloff's superb reading of 'The Crowning of Jesters'


She Saw, then...

Michael Dickes and I agreed to make a brand new piece for this issue. He gave me a great reading of 'She Saw'

   She Saw
She  grows  weary of  keen  eyesight and  the  seeing  of  things  that only she can see. She grows weary of the sound of the machine and its thrashing; tired of the turning of wheels; of the sweat that forms at the pounding of keys; of studying the strange texture that surfaces the darkening circles and the haunting of poverty for the price that was paid.  They will speak of hers as a wasted life, because they could not see.
(Text originally appeared in Thrice Fiction | Dec 2012)

A few weeks earlier I made the track 'Antanas, the cook' (after reading an article on Hans Lipschis )


More or less at the same time I had  found 'The vampire Bat' (especially the face on 32:09)
Great images, so I tried out some footage on that piece of music, cause I thought it fitted the original idea.
And at that time Michael gave me 'She Saw'...
Sometimes all falls into place and I would be stupid not to act on that,
so I combined all pieces;


Words & Voice: Michael Dickes
Concept, add. camera, editing & music: Swoon
Footage and audio samples: The Vampire Bat (Frank Strayer, 1933)

The Crowning of Jesters

A conversation:

S: "And now for something completely different...

I'm working on a new video; The shareholders meeting
(music:

Images will come from this video: http://archive.org/details/Mommartz_3_Glaser_1968 

I'm doing a re-edit of that archive material and Maybe  I want to add exerpts from 'Das Kapital' by Marx as titles. One thing missing: a poem that reflects greed, money - power, crisis, banks, the whole bubble of money driven economics that led to the different crises we had,...

Nothing literally...hints, atmosphere... Are you up for it?  Let me know what you think..."

 

                                                                 - TIME -

D: "...As for the new prompt, I can definitely give it a shot. I'll see if I can conjure up a draft within the next couple of days. Is that ok?"

                                                                 - TIME - 

S: "Yes, sure. Take your time...I'm happy you want to go for it..."

                                                                 - TIME -
 

D: "So, this is a draft. It's a little more upfront than some of the other stuff I've written for you, I think. That said, it's still pretty surreal. I want to still tweak it a bit, read it aloud a few times, etc"

 

                                                                  - TIME -

 

S: "Yes! Yes. Fantastic title. Love the quotes.
Good imaging. The last line 'Currency is a plot of land to which the wingless birds have marched us—on which we are sold the means to dig ourselves a more efficient kind of grave' is spot on...
So yes, you're definitely on to something. Tweak as you like and see fit."

 

                                                                   - TIME -

 

D: "I just wanted to touch base and let you know that I plan to have your poem recorded and on your desk by the end of the weekend at the latest.
I have it finished. I just need to be in a quiet environment with software long enough to read and edit it. Ha!

I should have it to you very soon now.
For what it's worth, I'm really liking this piece. I'm looking forward to the done deal"

 

                                                                   - TIME -

 

S: "Version 2.9: https://vimeo.com/67945738 (still private, pass: jesters) Let me know your thoughts." 

                                                                   - TIME -

 

D: "This is intense, man. Really intense. Opening with the scrolling stock stuff is brilliant. I love the way the words fit into the visuals all the way around. I was convinced I was watching a seance or something--very ominous. I think it's great"

 

                                                               - THE POEM -

                                                         THE CROWNING OF JESTERS

 

we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

—Anaïs Nin 

you wanted everything / you needed everything

—Fugazi, Greed 

The shallowy birds of the moment have given up to us their saccharin wings. They have eaten from the bowls of the dead, and they have swallowed back the coins left behind by the namesakes of unnamed families, whose bodies have been broken in the process of provision, their feet left dangling, given to the only certainties promised by a bacchic and unsteady wind.

ominous chamber music,

violins, et cetera.

bold static figures 

moving in and out of light— 

creatures reduced to the babble

of rusted swing sets, falling

about themselves,

tottering from the backs of chairs

 

When we say amen, we mean in god we trust. When we say in god we trust, we assume that our temples have been insured against the salt of the wicked men. Currency is a plot of land to which the wingless have marched us—on which we are sold the means to dig ourselves a deeper & more efficient kind of grave.

                                                   
                                                                      - THE VIDEO -



Words & Voice: David Tomaloff
Concept, add. Camera, Editing, Music: Swoon
Footage: '3 Glazer' (Lutz Mommartz)

River of Light

Paul Perry and I have put our forces together once before. That combination of his words and thoughts with my sounds and images seemed to hit the right chords here and there.
Drift (For two NATO soldiers who drowned in an attempt to recover supplies from a river in the province of Badghis, Western Afghanistan, November, 2009) was selected and screened for several festivals and even won first prize in this years 'La Parola Immaginata' (Jury details)

Time for a follow up. Paul gave me some of his poetry to choose from.

I picked out  River of Light

 

red, green and yellow neon

blur the highway

into a river of light

the intersection appears

like a mirage

smoke wafting from the policemen’s flares

call them mourning candles

three a.m.

surrounding the scene

the intersection

like a small island of sorrow

the car should not

be cut in half

so easily, so simply

but it is, there

we watch, dumb spectators,

held back

by yellow tape

as the police measure

confer and agree

the yellow plastic

covering the unnamed dead

flaps in the wind

like an ignominious flag

a warning, a reminder

flapping absurdly in rhythm

with the smashed blinker

 of the halved car,

again yellow

until the ambulance appears

and departs, easily, simply

the shattered glass swept away

the car removed

the tape taken

so that everything

looks as it did

an hour before

when we passed

on the other side

an unending kaleidoscope

a blurring, ever-moving

river of light

It's a poems (much like 'For two NATO soldiers...') that creeps up to you as an almost dry recapitulation of a daily newspaper article. And then it hits you, full force, in the stomach.

I needed very simple images. I wanted fragile, yet powerful. Light, yet disturbed. The same for the sounds.

Paul gave me a recording and I went to work on a suitable track;

While creating those soundsI got the idea of filming poppies. I knew of a small narrow strip full of them, in between two railroad lines. A flower that grows in the middle of concrete and iron. Strong yet fragile in the constant wind of trains. They worked perfectly.
Right at the end of the film I added images of reflections of an ambulance light and combined those with the sounds of heavy breathing.

Enjoy...


Words & Voice: Paul Perry
Concept, Camera, Editing & Music: Swoon

The Pioneer Wife Speaks in Tongues

Sometimes I collect images, keep them with me until the right poem comes along.

The same with certain tracks I create.
'And So They Live' (John Ferno, Julian Roffman, 1940) is a piece of archive showing poorly educated "mountain peoples" living in poverty and stricken with disease, it's a public-domain documentary about life in the Appalachian mountains with some great looking shots but a typical and very patronizing narration.
I used some parts before more than a year ago in 'Odds and Ends' The images stayed on my 'shelf' since then...

In came Donna Vorreyer. We worked together before and I think she's a very fine poet.
Donna has got a new collection out: 'The Imagined Life of the Pioneer Wife' (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2013)
Almost every poem in that collection could have been used for this videopoem. Not because they're all the same. Because they're all so good!

I asked Donna if I could use 'The Pioneer Wife Speaks in Tongues' and she recorded a version.
Listening to her voice I went back to this track:


The two worked perfectly together, I only added some whispering in the background. Now I had a steady basis and I could start the search for the right images.
There was one sequence in the film I really loved. Can't explain why, but the feet in the snow worked on a whole other level. When I placed that sequence on the basis, the rest came naturally.

Have a look and listen for yourself:


Words & Voice: Donna Vorreyer
Concept, add. Camera, Editing & Music: Swoon
Footage: 'And So They Live' (John Ferno, Julian Roffman, 1940)

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