A SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE
A Subjective Experience is becoming a doodle of movements that overlap the edited video clips. I have worked with three different approaches: object moving in front of still camera, deliberate camera movements and in collaboration with Ong attaching the camera to moving objects such as a ballon, kite and inside a plastic ball. The video will be connected through direction of movements, that lead the spectator through a scrapbook of my first experience in Thailand.
A SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE is a three-screen-video-dance-collage- installation, where everything is seen from the perspective of a dancing body. A camera is attached to different body parts while moving through the landscape of ComPeung. The camera movements create an independent dance that invites the spectator to feel the movement:
…feeling the temperature, feeling the soil, feeling the grass, feeling the leaves on the trees, a stone in my sandal, the freedom of spinning around myself while seeing the unfamiliar land, the color of the sky, a spider moving, the new smell, a strange flower, the sensation of a lake or waterfall, falling to the ground, feeling the dry sand in sweat, covering my body as I roll down hill…
The ‘I’ is removed, the body, the surface, and left is a nonlinear story of physicality and sensations.
The three screens will each be a collage of cut out moving images. Some images are static wide shots of the landscapes, that the other images (my point of view) is moving through. The three screens continuously change, as the POV images are traveling and discovering new things. The collage images will demonstrate how an experience brings along memories and associations, which help to shape and color the present.
My experience at ComPeung
ComPeung gave me an opportunity I would never have had in any other way: to work and live for one month in a completely strange environment with other artists and animals. The ComPeung team has created a space that is raw, beautiful and inspirational and the experience will stay with me forever.
My motivation for applying for the ComPeung grant was primarily for two reasons:
1. I wanted to experience a different culture, nature and live under basic sustainable conditions, to confront my own comfortable life style and habits.
2. To have one month only to explore ideas and new ways of working in company of artists from other disciplines.
My goal was to create a three screen dance video with no narrative and no performer, and have a camera attached to my body while filming my movements around what I experienced.
At the same time I wanted to work differently than I usually do, less planning and more improvisation and play:
My first approach was to attach the camera and dance to give the spectator the physical feeling of my movement, but I realised that the feeling does not translate directly.
So I started to work with simpler movement directions as well as being extremely aware of where the camera was facing. This time around the video felt too self aware and the physicality felt flat.
Then I met a snake and that was the turning point for my project.
In collaboration with Ong, I started to attach the camera to moving objects: a hot air balloon which we build ourselves, a kite and a plastic ball that worked under water. With this footage the camera started to have its’ own life and the movement became much more interesting.
The project is still in the editing process, and I still don’t know if I have a final product, but I learned a lot about the relationship between how the camera moves and what’s in front of the lens. I am continuing my research of the accidental camera movement, freeing the camera movements from the person, and forced camera movements.
Most importantly was my experience with the raw beautiful nature and how people live with it. The release of control and acceptance of the forces of nature and life, is both inspiring and intimidating to my Scandinavian controlling mentality.
Over all, the residency met my expectations, shook hands, and then took off to a different level that made the time so rich of emotions and experiences, that are still too close to describe.
Maia Sørensen
January 2012
http://maiasorensen.weebly.com/