Tarkovsky and the Sublime

September 20th, 2010

John McNeil showed a clip of Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”. The characters enter a realm of “The Zone” where their inner most desires are made true, while the director explores through the usage of abandoned landscapes – dreams and the sense of sublime that John is most interested in. The particular clip is the dream sequence that begins with the main character near the river.

Stalker – Dream Sequence.mp4 : This clip seems to showcase the sense of the infinite. To convey the spirituality of the human condition.

John showed his work currently which is of filming within abandoned hospital spaces. To explore the phenomena of the artifacts, of the abandoned. He recorded these spaces; specifically this movie auditorium. What was this space used for? How was it used and what type of people inhabited these spaces? Exploring this phenomenology is rather difficult. John when he was younger, recalled trying to get the adults to ‘see’ what he saw and related to. “A good try for an 8-year old”. For some of the pressing issues, John wonders how does technology affect this recent work of a Canon 5D taking HD video versus these images of 35 mm projectors? How to explore the space and figure actively to capture this sense of experience through time.

Critique:
Wilson Hill: You should play the soundtrack to the movie that was found; play it within the same room.

John McNeil: I worked with the echo digitally, and it didn’t seem to translate – recording the audio within that space could be worthwhile.

Lloyd Lowe, Jr.: The power of playing it within the space is an agent in bringing back to that time.

John McNeil: While that might be the effect, I want to try and avoid the sense of the nostalgic.

Timothy Druckrey: It is unavoidable. Every element; it seems that you are a romantic. Images that are suppose to be playing versus the static image. The machines that are suppose to be moving that aren’t. But it is dangerous to be too romantic. The music might be too much; The western that is referenced but having audio that exists within the space is interesting. Stop working to edit down; and expand it. Why was this abandoned? What happened in this room? How was everything left in such condition? But the space hasn’t been exhausted. The tension of the still versus what is moving and alive. The phenomenological deals a lot with perception and what constituted these limitations – somehow worked into your romantic vision. The relationship between that what is still versus moving. The projector filmed to then be projected on.

Craig Kalpakjian: The music does take away. It’s fun and edited well to it. I feel that the viewer expects a happy ending in the end; but the beginning has a larger sense of potential. The diptych has a sense of potential as well, but I don’t know why.

John McNeil: The separate videos as two eyes established by the two projectors (technically to continue a movie in the 1920′s and 1940′s.

Craig Kalpakjian: The images that are juxtaposed are great with a piano and then projector.

Timothy Druckrey: The projector itself has optical sound. An element to think about when exploring the space. Films were shown at night, to try and get that atmosphere would be important to focus on.

Recommended:
“Architecture and Utopia”
“The Poetics of Space”