further journal extract
sun 9 sept 7
It’s odd how we talk about a particular artist’s aesthetic or body of work as though the overall pattern or meaning we see in the corpus was there from the beginning. It’s like assuming that the shape of a mountain was thereas soon as the rocks came into being. I was struck by this when I browsed through the biographical details included as extras on the DVD of Derek Jarman’s Blue. I’d just watched Glitterbug, another extra. The interpretation of Jarman’s work in those biographical details wasn’t one I was going to disagree with, but it still came across as utterly unfamiliar. It probably seemed that way because of the imposition of a narrative that assumes an end point. But art and life are a lot more complicated than that. Oten we don’t really know what we’re doing. Or we’re deliberately going against the grain of our normal habits.
Having said all that I’m about to contradict it. The difference between the film I’ve shot since The Stones Escape and most of what I shot before is that now I know what I’m doing. The difference is this: previously I worried too much about the image. About whether and where to move the camera. About what to fit in the frame. About how long to shoot for. About the composition, about what the image “said”, about what images would be on either side. Now I know some of these things. I know other of these things don’t matter much. And I know the rest can be fixed later. It’s also a kind of indefinable internal sureness. That’s knowing what I’m doing. But as yet I’ve only begun learning. Not knowing what I’m doing is not worrying about an overall scheme. Filming just to film. This isn’t to compare my crappy little amateurisms with the work of the late 20th century’s greatest filmmakers. It’s simply to use personal experience to illustrate the point.
A related question about an artist’s aesthetic suggests itself. How does the instrument, the equipment you learn your basic skills on affect your future aesthetic? For instance all other things being equal will you develop a different sensibility if you learn using Super 8 than if you learn using consumer quality digital? Of course a good artist once they’ve developed their skill in a particular area - in this case film - will be able to adapt to working with tools other than those they’re used to and to do so effectively. But I suspect these formative influences still affect what’s produced. This is a particular personal anxiety, that for all my positive feelings my films may never progress beyond where they are at present. Or that even if they do they’ll be so wedded to the special effects of a particular technology that a genuine voice may never emerge. Simply I’m concerned that some of my video looks good only because I’m learning how to select the right image to display the technology to best advantage. I’m being led by the camera rather than learning how to realise a vision.
It’s odd how we talk about a particular artist’s aesthetic or body of work as though the overall pattern or meaning we see in the corpus was there from the beginning. It’s like assuming that the shape of a mountain was thereas soon as the rocks came into being. I was struck by this when I browsed through the biographical details included as extras on the DVD of Derek Jarman’s Blue. I’d just watched Glitterbug, another extra. The interpretation of Jarman’s work in those biographical details wasn’t one I was going to disagree with, but it still came across as utterly unfamiliar. It probably seemed that way because of the imposition of a narrative that assumes an end point. But art and life are a lot more complicated than that. Oten we don’t really know what we’re doing. Or we’re deliberately going against the grain of our normal habits.
Having said all that I’m about to contradict it. The difference between the film I’ve shot since The Stones Escape and most of what I shot before is that now I know what I’m doing. The difference is this: previously I worried too much about the image. About whether and where to move the camera. About what to fit in the frame. About how long to shoot for. About the composition, about what the image “said”, about what images would be on either side. Now I know some of these things. I know other of these things don’t matter much. And I know the rest can be fixed later. It’s also a kind of indefinable internal sureness. That’s knowing what I’m doing. But as yet I’ve only begun learning. Not knowing what I’m doing is not worrying about an overall scheme. Filming just to film. This isn’t to compare my crappy little amateurisms with the work of the late 20th century’s greatest filmmakers. It’s simply to use personal experience to illustrate the point.
A related question about an artist’s aesthetic suggests itself. How does the instrument, the equipment you learn your basic skills on affect your future aesthetic? For instance all other things being equal will you develop a different sensibility if you learn using Super 8 than if you learn using consumer quality digital? Of course a good artist once they’ve developed their skill in a particular area - in this case film - will be able to adapt to working with tools other than those they’re used to and to do so effectively. But I suspect these formative influences still affect what’s produced. This is a particular personal anxiety, that for all my positive feelings my films may never progress beyond where they are at present. Or that even if they do they’ll be so wedded to the special effects of a particular technology that a genuine voice may never emerge. Simply I’m concerned that some of my video looks good only because I’m learning how to select the right image to display the technology to best advantage. I’m being led by the camera rather than learning how to realise a vision.
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