I decided to study visuality and translation as a method in this project. I chose two videos, Flower Forest and Living Analog, from the artist Olli Kilpi. Olli and I are working at the same Ekho collective. The Ekho Collective is a multidisciplinary cluster of people who share an interest in art and technology. Olli´s videos are the drafts of common brainstorming sessions. Our aim has been to create visual landscape which is at the same time organic and artificial.
As a choreographer I got interested in these videos because they are always transforming and at the same time do remain the same. Formations and textures morph and return to their original state, sometimes taking on new shapes, colors or shades. The videos got my attention because of their complexity and multi-layered nature. The videos fall into a grey area, between or beyond dualistic thinking. I see the videos as posthumanistic: they offer alternative, non-hierarchical ways to understand the features and interrelationships of different objects.
I selected the translation method because I am isolated from others due the corona pandemic. I began to long for dialogue through artistic work. I see the translations rather reflective than mimetic: the both videos, originals and my translations, communicate with each other.
Filming and editing became part of my artistic practice. I filmed and edited every day beside the bodily practices and small dances in my little dance space at home. I have been inspired by haptic visuality: how the visual material produces synesthesia between different senses. I am particularly interested in creating tactical and kinesthetic sensations for the viewer.
Flower Forest
To give structure for the translation I began by listing the components of the Flower Forest video. I have been responding to the following components of the original video: the colors, shadows, repetition, variation, enters and exits, the life as a recycle of routines, the same fractal texture all the time but still changing all the time.
When editing this translation I wanted to make transparent the complexity of the several roles I have in relation to the video: the body performing for the camera, translator-editor and me as the a choreographer. The every-life reality is part of the translation, however their relationship is not one-to-one. I examine and feel the current highlighted elements of reality in relation to the video. Translation take place between the original material, performative space and lived space, revealing the terms of their representation.
Living Analog
In the Living Analog video I got interested in the analogical, which appears in the form of pixels and as a reference to analog television. Analogy (from the Greek word analogos, rational, consistent) means uniformity, similarity, equivalence, comparability. What is an analogical body? I understand an analogical body in this context has a mimetic relationship to the material to be translated. However, my goal with the translation is not mimetic but reflective. What about digital body then? Latin word digitus means fingers and toes, which refers to numbers and counting. In digitization, the information is converted to a binary number format as a data. The digital body means to me the complexity of the body in the context of the translation. The outcome is something else than the original source. It escapes the representation.
In the translation of Living Analog I wanted to show the body as non-human, strange and uncanny by filming it from very close proximity. By using a macro lens in the camera, certain parts of the body began to resemble a graphic surface or terrain. I also used the spike yoga mat which makes small holes to the skin to create graphic pattern. I would say the translation version could be named “Living Digital” in that sense that the translation generated a new layer of information.
References
Karen Barad, Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter and maybe some other texts. Intra-action, representation, new materialism, posthumanism.
Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble
Especially I am interested the concepts:
Sym-poiesis: The Experimental Futures requires sym-poiesis, or making-with, rather than auto-poiesis or self-making.
Never alone: related to sym-poiesis, collaboration.
Laura U. Marks. I am interested in her idea of haptic visuality and how to escape representation especially in cinema. Her research is based on for example Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Lisa Nelson, Tuning score. Architecture of the space, enters and exits.
Tarja Pitkänen-Walter, Liian haurasta kuvaksi: maalauksen aistisuudesta. Painting as a way of understanding based on multi-sensory and mixed senses. She is using Laura U. Marks one of her reference.
Iiu Susiraja. She inspires me because of the humor and the aesthetic of everyday life. Although she appears in the works herself, her works are not self-portraits but rather performances for the lens.
Original videos Olli Kilpi / Ekho Collective
Concept / translation videos Iina Taijonlahti
Flower Forest translation technical help Vesa-Pekka Grönfors, Living Analog translation filming Vesa-Pekka Grönfors
Links:
When watching the videos choose the 540p or 720p from the video settings down right.