My name is Sara I'm in 2nd year Illustration at ECA.

This blog is my journal for my symposium project.

The title of this project is 'Beyond Spaces.'

We got assigned a corridor in the basement of our uni. You have to see beyond it, its function or dysfunction.

A corridor is a transitional spaces. I like that we have this space, because I like the shape of it, and the fact that people just pass thought it. 

Our tutor send us to see the spaces for the first time (for most of us) in this corridor but in the dark, we could take small lights if we wanted.

It was awesome. I loved the feeling of this void with little lines of lights coming from under the doors. The calm, the dark; I really liked this feeling. I wanted to make a film of this first meeting with our spaces but then I figured I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I would if I wasn't filming.

After wards we had to write down the feelings we had there on a post-it, and then put them in the corridor with everyone else's post-it/feeling.

 I have issues to work with groups because every piece of work I do is highly personal and it is quite hard for me to open up with others (it is kind of why I do art actually, to communicate without direct interaction); but I'm looking forward to work with my group because there is so many different fields : TV&film, animation, fashion, jewellery, product design, graphic design and me ! It is very exiting to share and create a common thing with all these different way of thinking&seeing the world ! 

We already had a lot of ideas; it's going to be a common use of the corridor, like everyday's life of the corridor, but an introspection of this trivial space.

Thrashing out ideas :

-big sheets of paper on the floor to get footprints.

-filming everyday w/ different camera, different people, different angle, different mood

-recording sounds, make a 'track' (more like a noise track I guess) and put big sheets of paper

on the wall so people throw their emotions on the paper while listening to the sounds of the corridor at another time.

-installation w/ a sort of film (abstract) of all these shots by different cameras, and filming details we couldn't see just walking by + people walking by, maybe interact w/ w-sheets of paper (on wall so people can draw lines while walking), project the film on these sheets of paper ? 

-the use of light&sounds&their collaboration in a film/video (what if there is a sounds but the image is not corresponding .)

-use of spaces next to the corridors, spaces that the corridor leads to .

We filmed the corridor on different angles. In the end we can't do the everyday another camera thing because we won't have enough time to put it all together. So we use the camera of the guy from TV&Film.

I love what the short give as an impression, it's so beautiful and it really doesn't seems like it's been filmed in the corridor it's so crazy ! 

What I did over the week end is research and painting snapshot of the videos.

They are really aesthetic I really thing we can go somewhere with all this ! 

The whole group project wroks well, I mean we are not all the time as a group etc. but it all work out I think. 

I am less uncomfortable with the group and I feel like I finally foudn where I want to go. It's always hard to see directly where you want to go but here I feel it.

I painted snapshots of the vidéos we did because they looked so beautiful. I really wanted to make that so I did.

While painting I was thinking that it is so wierd because I couldn't say I'm painting a corridor.

I think that for once, we stopped and looked at what a spaces can offer. And no need to completely go in to wierd explanations. Just the space is beautiful if you pay attention to it. My friends always tell me that I walk super slowly and I always respond : i'm not, i'm just exploring. And that's what art is all about, all my inspirations a from the world that surronds me. And everyone laughs at me... But it is true.

So I think this project is super nice for that, we HAVE to look, watch, observe. Actually we don't have to look, we have to see. 

It is a bit like the Bible say : "I was blind and now I can see", that's what art school is all about isn't it ? 

I wrote a little text about the corridor also. Just my feelings, and my impressions.

The corridor is blue.
Some lights comes out of  some doors
It's like in a dream or memories
You can't quite understand everything
That is around you
You have this feeling like you are fainting
But you're faking
It's not a dream


Eht rodirroc si eulb.
Emos sthgil semoc tuo fo  emos srood
Ti's ekil ni a maerd ro seiromem
Uoy nac't etiuq dnatsrednu gnihtyreve
Taht si dnuora uoy
Uoy evah siht gnileef ekil uoy era gnitniaf
Tub uoy'er gnikaf
Ti's ton a maerd

.blue is corridor thE

doors some  of out comes lights somE

memories or dream a in like s'iT

everything understand quite t'can yoU

you around is thaT

fainting are you like feeling this have yoU

faking re'you buT

dream a not s'iT

ʇı,s ʇou ɐ ɯɐǝɹp

ʇnq noʎ,ǝɹ ƃuıʞɐɟ

noʎ ǝʌɐɥ sıɥʇ ƃuıןǝǝɟ ǝʞıן noʎ ǝɹɐ ƃuıʇuıɐɟ

ʇɐɥʇ sı punoɹɐ noʎ

noʎ uɐɔ,ʇ ǝʇınb puɐʇsɹǝpun ƃuıɥʇʎɹǝʌǝ

ʇı,s ǝʞıן uı ɐ ɯɐǝɹp ɹo sǝıɹoɯǝɯ

ǝɯos sʇɥƃıן sǝɯoɔ ʇno ɟo  ǝɯos sɹoop

ǝɥʇ ɹopıɹɹoɔ sı ǝnןq˙

re re re research.

 Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film.

Over the course of five decades, Brakhage created a large and diverse body of work, exploring a variety of formats, approaches and techniques that included handheld camerawork, painting directly onton celluloid, fast cutting, in-camera editing, scratching on film, collage film and the use of multiple exposures. Intersted in mythology and inspired by music, poetry, and visual phenomena, Brakhage sought to reveal the universal in the particular, expolring themes of birth, mortality, sexuality and innocence.Brakhage's films are often noted for their expressiveness and lyricism.

I think Brakhage communicated perfectly the emotions and by a very aesthetic and beautiful way.I love the colours of his films, they are so armonious; the videos are always very texturised. I actually did some scratching film but only my former tutor has them and he doesn't seem to answear my emails.

Anyway, I think that in my head this project is going to be Brakhage inspired, but it probably won't look like it at all. But in the colors, and the fact that details are filmed etc. At least my contribution was definitly inspired by him. His work seems like it's magic and I really want to communicate that a bit, like a sort of different dimension but actually in our dimension. I find his work really beautiful and touching, full of meanings.

 Cat's Cradle

 Window water baby moving

re re re research.

Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in the farming village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. He currently lives and works in New York City. In 1944, he and his brother Adolfas were taken by the Nazis to a forced labor camp in Elmshorn, Germany. After the War he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. At the end of 1949 the UN Refugee Organization brought both brothers to New York City.

Two weeks after his arrival in New York he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. In 1954, together with his brother, he started Film Culture magazine, which soon became the most important film publication in the US. In 1958 he began his legendary Movie Journal column in the Village Voice. In 1962 he founded the Film-Makers' Cooperative, and in 1964 the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world's largest and most important repositories of avant-garde cinema, and a screening venue.

During all this time he continued writing poetry and making films. To this date he has published more than 20 books of prose and poetry, which have been translated into over 12 languages. Since 2000, Mekas has expanded his work into the area of film installations

What I love in Mekas' work is that he is documenting life. Just simple banal things that happens in life. Also interviews and events of course. But life. And he is totally right, life might be trivial but there is beauty in triviality. I think the relationship to this project is that Mekas see beyond normal everyday's life things throught his own camera; and I think we do the same. When you make a video, or a film, when ou watch it over and over again, things keep to pop up, oh that's there, oh i haven't seen this. The more you watch the more you actually see, and here our project we focus on details because we play with the light and the fact that they changes with a close up etc. But I think that it would have been super intersting to just film one shot and put it again and again and again, but of course the tutors wouldn't like that one ! ah. But anyway, I love also the camera he is using and how it has an impact on how you watch the video. I also really like the fact that he is an artist and in the wide sense. I always loved the relationship words could have with a piece of art, or the absence of words. poetry, text, words. It all make sense all together.

365 day project/ Day 19

We putted strings throughts the corridor, to see how people react/interact w/ this. Also we putted masking tape on the ground making a path, and see if people follow it or not.

To be honest I wasn't really up for that idea but it was quite nice to see people moving in a space in a unusual way.Changing their path, changing their way of seeing things, changing their moves.

The fact of putting an usual object in this space also changed the view of it and its possibilities. For me it looked a bit like connections of a brain, I liked that idea of exploring the brain a bit. Would have been awesome to let people go throught it in the dark but yeah it's a bit dangerous. 

It also made me think of people going throught something, like a path; a bit like wandering souls, like they were searching their way to the aim. A bit like the greek mythological myth : you have to go throught the 'Averne' lake (i don't know if it's also  Averne in english but I couldn't find the name in english anywhere) to arrive to the Styx; where all the souls wander till then end of time without finding their way. Well that made me think of that; and also made me think of a childbirth, a bit like the film of Brakhage. This transitional space, and at the end you don't know what to espect. Like you don't know where you go or where you're from, this in-between void.

After the string experience I wanted to do something a bit further : a wall of strings. Someone passing throught a so many strings the person has to destroy it. And to joint my previous idea of a childbirth.

A complete obstruction of the pathway. 

Also we did 'casts' of the floor using latex, it keeps the dirt and some prints, it is super nice. We are going to project the film on these. So we are going to make a very big 'cast' of the ground to recolt dirt, prints and other. It creates a super nice texture, and as we are all about texture light and sound this is a very nice way to distord the video by putting texture directly on the wall.

Also I wrote a 'poem' (it's no poetry but yeah I wrote it in 2 sec so..) to explain our work. We are going to read it out loud and put it in the video. I am going to tell it in french and another girl in lithuanian, and the rest in english. 

                                                    The passageway of the wandering souls

Some pass throught it fast

Some take their time

But it doesn't matter

Once you've reached the end

It's the same for everyone

The passageway is an experience

That we all witness

One way 

Or another