written by: Andrew Colarusso
visual Andrew Rosinski
music: Matt Walsh
duration: 3 min infinite loop
release year: 2010
two-channel video | 720x480
color
sound / silence (two options)
--> download HD video and press materials Click here
A two-channel video installation featuring a scroll of two-column text, written by Andrew Colarusso, with visual and animation by Andrew Rosinski, and music by Matt Walsh of The Forms and The Desert Fathers. The piece is an endless two-screen loop.
The traditional Pavane proceeds slowly and carefully in something of a courtly static. There is a preservation of distance in its sound that suits the accompanying dance; typically man and woman standing shoulder to shoulder, fingertips gracefully touching. They move forward with the music, kicking gently in synchronicity with each appropriate flourish. I found this renaissance music tailored to the image of carnal desire. Consider the dynamic present between the two dancers and the music that aligns them. Anne Carson describes this as the basic geometric of eros — the triangle:
“It is not a poem about the three of them as individuals, but about the geometrical figure formed by their perception of one another, and the gaps in the perception. It is an image of the distances between them.”
I sought to enact the voices of at least three figures in the space of one musical act. There is the mother, there is the amateur, there is the beloved and beyond them there is the space — the tower, the gatekeepers and their dreams. There are the objects as well present — the calla lily in particular. Borrowing from the imaginations of Diego Rivera, the flower itself comes to represent this great unknowable space, how it is torn between their fingers and insoluble in their voices.
The directions make clear that this piece should be spoken by two voices in opposition. Within this triangulation of characters, there are the two voices, movement toward and movement away from the desired other. What should remain here is a portrait of the negative space, that which remains unsaid as constituting the epicenter of this erotic episode. Here is not simply the triangle, but the tetrahedron of desire.
With the kinetic text and visual, I sought to mirror the complexities of the text itself. I started my process by reading and rereading the text over and over using an orange highlighter and pen. Certain words jumped off the page, I would jot down some ideas and visual motifs on paper, and I would take my orange highlighter and highlight them, vis-a-vis highlight visually by creating visual tropes that chased the words' inherent complexities.
The aesthetics of the visual is governed by a strict color rule I established: use only red, green and blue, with the exception of grayscale — and then we have the pink and yellow fluid, which embodies something special.
The piece is two-channel standard definition and is to be displayed on two-separate and synchronized monitors that endlessly loop. The visual is silent; however, beneath the display is an audio player, with headphones, playing a loop of supplementary audio. The video is SD, therefore the monitors need not be fancy — any interlaced 4x3 monitor will work perfectly fine, granted that the two monitors are equal size.
--> download .pdf of the text (right click) here
--> download .zip of film stills (right click) here
--> download .pdf press release (soon) (right click) here
--> download source video (hi-res) (right click) here
(play video fullscreen and loop: apple users:
quicktime
--> cmd+F --> cmd+L)
- -stay
- -stay
there
where
you were
our mother in the mouth of the tunnel
shut eyes inside and back- -held sun
the blood of first born calf sings in half
life- -marrow in her cheekbones adorn
her children like red vine
climbing her a hiding linden
traffic moving around her- -purpose
as rotund eyes to her children all weighs
our mother in the mouth of the tunnel
before the rail strike lightning
her nail to black cormorant- long neck
to navigate the cavern space
the subterranean edifice she has become
intuition in the mouth of her sun
unconvinced she will be there when the
tunnel collapses -the bearer of lilies
in the mouth of my
sun
has she come? your one
calla lily
-and from who
what your shoulders meant to then
be lethargy the water of our patience
on the gate keepers brow is a narrowing
parapet- -hungry for the untoward
who has eaten as quickly time in an arch
over the gate keepers dream- -they
react in temperatures near premonition
atop the tower last left your amateur
has eaten as quickly time in an arch
over the gate keepers dreams- -wade
through their heights -as the katydid
is not to meet its heights -your amateur
dried the lips- -on your knees sipping
its slim shadow a soft composition soft
hair and heather- who built the hands
that built this- -and slowly
dried the lips- -on your knees sipping
the slim shadow of the tower made
hair stand feather- -who built the hands
that built this tower
barring light- umbrage whets
the language- the tongue may embalm
the fetishes chiding and slowly
holding air turn chance turn we are
pressed forward -eyes questioning
what my shoulders meant -to then
press between- your teeth
stained with wine
-and wrong giveness nod
we begin again
and
when your amateur has left- -your one
calla lily- -beloved will you nod
when one lily away will not do