into abstraction | form and place | holding our absence | a returning ecstasy
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“Into Abstraction | Form and Place” continues my exploration of various forms that manifest elements of the surreal, abstract and memory attachments. The piece structure is centered around a time-lapsed progression. It moves from a visual kinetic movement to a slower more meditative movement. The electronic sound scape mirrors this movement with several layers of organic and industrial sounds centered around a continuous ambient drone. Within this complex musical structure, different distinct modalities emerge. And after several minutes of frenetic movement, the sound structure slowly washes away (with ocean waves) into a quieter more delineated infused drone. In each new video in the series “Into Abstraction”, I am attempting to find new ways of manipulating the film software. This process is very satisfying because the possibilities seem endless.
I have been working on this piece for several weeks. And over that time, I found myself contemplating many aspects of my life, as I often do, and searching for visual parallels that may compliment the emotional context of the moment. As in most of my work, I find that I repeat and remix many of my images, sounds, thoughts, and voices. Sometimes I wonder if the emotional connections of the past and the present ever change at all, or just evolve into the future: Evolve into the continuum which is the work. Evolve Into Abstraction, where form and void, form and memories, form and mutation, form and impermanence, form and dreams and form and place become one. Art has a way of giving us a moment of clarity, but does not necessarily save. Our work at times can reveal the life that lives in shadows. But may never quite give us the answers we seek to sustain us. So we are driven to go at it as if there were no history before now.
your world beginning | maps, mountains, and trails – day 7
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Day 7 finds “Your World Beginning”, on the trail to the summit of Waterrock Knob. In search of a transitional ambience of Fall colors, fog, and rain. This is an incredible location here at the summit. There is always a constant or intermittent wind blowing. The clouds shift quickly above, or as today, the fog can be seen everywhere.
Waterrock Knob is a mountain peak in the state of North Carolina. It is the highest peak in the Plott Balsams and is the 16th highest mountain in the Eastern United States. It is the 15th highest of the 40 mountains in North Carolina over 6000 feet.
The mountain is split by both Haywood and Jackson counties in the western part of the state. It is located in the Plott Balsams mountain chain between the Great Smoky Mountains and the Great Balsam Mountains. The mountain’s summit is located within the Blue Ridge Parkway National Park Service unit.
The mountain is a popular destination with tourists and amateur hikers as it is easily accessible from the Parkway. A visitors center is located near its summit and a hiking trail leads to its top. The hiking trail and visitors center are manned and maintained by the National Park Service, part of the United States Department of the Interior.
your world beginning | a history before now
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Day 6 in the “Your World Beginning” series is entitled “A History Before Now.” This film has a more ambient feel to it than the previous “A Life of Contradictions and Disappearing Things. It is sparse in its visual content, while imploring some elements of poetic prose inspired by a fellow poet. It continues the theme of the exploration of daily life, with hints of ambiguity and historical musings as abstraction. Initially, when I created this series, I wanted it to be a distinct leap from my previous series entitled “Your World Disappearing,” giving birth to a new beginning. However, the emotional content that fueled the “Disappearing” series has slowly found its way into this series as well: ‘Everything changes except a persistent memory.’ To some degree, although everything is in constant flux–giving way to things disappearing and beginning simultaneously, there is an ambiguity and mundane existence to it all.
your world beginning | a life of contradictions and disappearing things – day 5
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Day – 5 in the “Your World Disappearing” series brings us into a life of contradictions and disappearing things. Filmed in part in Asheville, NC, the film examines isolation, entropy, conflicting realities, and reflection. Multiple layers of contrasting elements explore our ambiguities as to what is real and what is an illusion: Life in all its complexity has multiple paths, roads, objectives and choices.
your world beginning | every artistic moment has its place – day 4
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As we move forward in our creative process, we sometimes travel back on the unending edge of everything, endure a storm or two, exist in solitude, and find that every artistic moment has its place.
your world beginning | drifting into everything – day 2 : video art HD
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The fourth short film in the “Your World Beginning” series, again explores the connection between our relationship with our memories, dreams, and everyday life. The series is my attempt to delve deeper into those moments when we are living through the patterns of life that we have created for ourselves, while simultaneously feeling the ambiguity and lightness of our dreams and aspirations.
In composing the music, I am using sound samples to create a layered sonic ambience, with hints of melody and tonality. In the series, organic sounds and industrial technological sounds merge to create dreamlike structures to enrich the imagination and supplement the visual composition.
experiment: data complex 10 | the world in recollection (a returning place remix) | video art HD
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“The World In Recollection” will be the last in my featured series of the emerging world concept. I am not sure where I will venture into next with video, but I hope to feature more of my own experimental imagery.
experiment: data complex 9 | a world inside (a zen nature remix) | video art in HD
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“A World Inside (A Zen Nature Remix)” is an audio and visual remix of the video piece I composed a few months back entitled “Zen Nature | Landscapes for Well being”. In this remix I added the spinning globe, which I have been featuring in my two previous videos. The emerging global image represents the continuous complexity of societal and existential relationships: In “Data complex 7”, the focused was on social, civil, and political entities. In “Data Complex 8”, I explored emotional ambiguities, abstract thought, and memory attachments as it pertains to the individual. In this piece, “Data Complex 9”, I draw attention to the Earth itself, as a landscape for well-being and Spiritual connection. In the remix, small distinct sound samples were added to the soundtrack, along with poetic thought to the visual construct. The actual visual and aural part of the video ends around the 5 minute mark, with an additional 1:46 seconds of a black screen and silence. “Into creation, into silence”. A moment for the viewer to explore his or her own meditative recollection.
experiment: data complex 8 | a world floating by for you and i | video art
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“A World floating By For You and I” is an expression of ambiguity in how we exist within the world around us.
experiment: data complex 7 | a world apart | video art
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After several weeks of editing, I have completed my most recent video in my “Experiment: Data Complex” series. It is entitled ” A World Apart” and it focuses on the historical, and current separatist constructs that have negatively affected African-Americans and society as a whole. The Data Complex series brings together modern digital technology, and ambient music with various visual artistic styles such as Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Futurism to convey its message. Recently I watched the video of the Jay Z performance art piece entitled “Picasso Baby” at the Pace Gallery in New York City. His merging of Hip Hop culture and High Art culture was impressive. As a digital artist, and an African-American artist, I believe as Jay Z so eloquently said, that (and I paraphrase) it is a time for us to take the technology and expand our vision for the world to see. I hope to always push forward and merge the boundaries of digital art, video art, and contemporary soundscapes as tools to bring together “A World Apart”.
variations | savannah river walk
This past week, Nancy and I spent our vacation at Tybee Island, and in Savannah GA. A little beach, surf, and ocean mixed with downtown art and galleries. We did some kayaking on the backwaters and enjoyed the festivities along the River Walk in Savannah’s Old Historic District. The sights, sounds and smells were wonderful. I hope to capture in my own unique way, the experience, in several upcoming posts. I am also currently working on my latest video project entitled “Data Complex 7 | A World Apart”. With the current climate of injustice and unrest in our civil, social, and political spheres, I thought the video might be an appropriate experimental exploration for the times we lives in. Be on the look out for a short video preview this week, and the final piece next week.
experiment: data complex 6 | all is forgiven
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All is forgiven …
with the final
curtain call
and their last dance
with our beating hearts
and the setting sun
with its’ last goodbye
All is forgiven …
when strange fruit
and black bodies
(hooded)
as they sometimes may be
succumbs … for the last time
to the poplar tree
experiment: data complex 5 | a returning place | video art
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The journey to silence as visited through “A Returning Place”. Often the road to our true essence is discovered through the meditative path of silence. In that silence, we navigate the past; leaving it behind. We dismiss the anxiety of an uncertain future; freeing us from our thoughts. It is our hope that we find the journey without moving, The one that takes us on the road inward: The present moment, and the freedom through enlightenment to see things as they really are.
This video captures some of the elements of natural and man-made silence: Silent films, Space, singularity, and the journey one takes alone … in this thing called life.
experiment: data complex 3 | nostalgia | video art
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The day on the beach brought back memories of beautiful times gone by: She the choreographer and dancer, and he the artist and filmmaker. Together they drifted back to the beginning of their artistic dreams. Fused with the technology of the post-modern world and the collective mindset of a creative construct, they forged ahead into the unknown: History has a way of repeating itself. What is old is new. The same as it ever was. Forever and a day.
experiment: data complex 2 | shipwrecked | video art
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Drifting on the endless sea, a Titanic moment: Crushed against the data of memories, hopes and dreams. Cold and icy. Feeling a part of something, in the place of everything, on the edge of nothingness. Falling from the sky with no structure to evolve into. Living in a deep, dark, place masquerading as a beautiful heaven; a post modern world, an urban complexity. Data Complex – Shipwrecked.
experiment: data complex | video art
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“Experiment: Data Complex” the latest video in my “Experiment” series examines our relationships with science, math, society, art and music within the constructs of a Futuristic theme. How do they manifest in our daily lives and what is the critique of their influence? Again for me, it is an exploration of various elements i.e. abstract art, technology and sound. The visual and audio elements of Data Complex are purposely composed in short intervals of sampled imagery and sound; building upon itself as the video progresses. Similar to the process of my digital art compositions, I like to use elements (bits and pieces, 0’s and 1’s) that I previously created to establish a continuous rhythm of structure. Hence the density of sound and the layering of imagery throughout the piece. And as I have stated before, the audio composition and editing is strongly influenced by music styles such as IDM, Ambient, Trance, Neo-Classical, and Glitch. Everything is always in an experimental and exploratory mode. Hope you enjoy the video. Let me know what you think.
45 second video preview | data complex
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I am presently working on my latest “experiment” video entitled “data complex”. It explores the fusion of data complexities in our society i.e. media, technology, art etc. The structure of the video is based on short video data clips, and sampled audio soundscapes. The audio composition and editing is strongly influenced by music styles such as IDM, Neo-Classical, and Glitch and from such artists as Alva Noto, Steinbruchel, Ryoji Ikeda, and featured in this clip, German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel and his Canon in D Major.
n e w d i g i t a l s c a p e s 