Shahn’s Blog:
http://sixmartinis.blogspot.com/2007/06/thither-we-came-and-thence-down-in-moat.html
I love the pictures you posted very much, and the comment you made about the darkness which suits some films. This reminds me of the news about Lars Von Trier many years ago. The news said “A year after the Cannes screening of his latest work, "The Idiots," von Trier was aghast to discover late last month that the two principals of his Copenhagen-based Zentropa production company had manipulated the final print in post -- a cardinal sin in the austere Dogma film cathedral -- and released it theatrically in a much brighter version without telling him. “
I don’t know if the version of THE IDIOTS that I saw on the wide-released video is the brighter version or the version which satisfied Von Trier. But I think it might be a brighter version, because the pictures seem to be clear.
If you like films with dark images, I strongly recommend you watch the DVD of SOMBRE (1998, Philippe Grandrieux). It is so darkly beautiful. My friend said that SOMBRE is like what Andrei Tarkovsky would have made if he had to direct a serial killer film.
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--I went to see NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD at BANGKOK UNIVERSITY GALLERY on Saturday 16, June 2007. I like it very much. It is a video installation made by Arin Rungjang, someone whom I have never heard of before.
I just found that Arin Rungjang has a myspace page. In his page, there are some photos from this video installation.
http://www.myspace.com/arinrungjang
Below are the photos I took from the video installation:
There are two video screens installed on one wall. The viewers have to walk through damp soil to view them. There are spare shoes for the viewers on the door. So you don’t have to worry that you might stain your Manolo Blahnik. You just leave them at the door and use the spare shoes to walk through the damp soil.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1190/587446264_aa67c5444d_o.jpg
One video is called MY MOTHER WAITING FOR THE INTERVIEW. It is a long, static shot lasting one hour. The image is of a woman just sitting on a couch. She moves some parts of herself from time to time, such as crossing her arms, or picking her nose. Many old songs are used as soundtrack. They are songs from around the 1950’s and some haunting songs remind me of David Lynch’s films.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/587446138_e36542c6fc_o.jpg
Another video is called MY BEST FRIEND EXCAVATING THE EARTH. It is also a long, static shot lasting one hour. The image is of someone digging the earth in a garden. Sometimes he walks out of the frame, and comes back to dig again. Some animals are walking in and out of the frame.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1417/587446274_ed91a27194_o.jpg
What I like the most in NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD is not the ordinary images, nor the soundtrack, nor the installation of the video. I admit that the installation of this video in a room full of soil is quite original in my point of view. I have never seen anything like it. But I don’t give A+ to originality. I give A+ to something which makes me feel strongly, though that thing might be a cliche. What I like the most in NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD is the text which appears on the bottom of the screen of MY BEST FRIEND EXCAVATING THE EARTH. This text describes the memory of someone about his past and his parents. It is like a stream-of-consciousness writing, jumping back and forth between different moments in time or places. This text really captivated me, and made me do what I didn’t intend to do. It made me stand watching the whole one-hour-long video with a heavy bag on my shoulders.
When I went to see NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD. I carried a heavy bag on my shoulders. I didn’t think the heavy bag would be a problem to me, because I thought that this video installation might be like the last one shown at the Bangkok University Gallery—WHO WISHES TO REPRESENT AN ANGEL, MAKES A BEAST (2007, Christine Laquet, A+)—which lasted only 10-15 minutes. And I also thought that though the video is long (such as HERO (2006, Thaweesak Srithongdee, A+), which lasted more than one hour), I still could put my bag on the floor. But I guessed wrong. If you are standing watching NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD, you cannot put your bag on that floor. The damp soil on the floor is too dirty.
While I started watching NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD, I thought I might just watch it for 10-15 minutes, or I would leave whenever I started feeling that I couldn’t carry my bag any more. But the text written by Arin Rungjang somehow made me forget the heavy bag that I was carrying.
There are many parts of the text that I like, such as:
1.”When I was a child, everytime a plane flew over my house, I would run out of the house and shout, “My father is coming. My father is coming.” And then my mom would cry. I remember that my grandmother told me that whoever made his mother cry would go to hell.”
2.The narrator described a dream in which he and his father went boating. When their boat was flowing on a canal, he fell out of the boat and tried to reach the boat. Then there was a hand reaching out of the boat. The narrator grabbed that hand as firmly as he could. He thought it was the hand of his father. But he saw a face full of blood and opening wounds.
3.The narrator described that when he grew up a bit, he was afraid to touch his mother, because he thought that touching someone might make the person who was touched know everything inside the mind of the person who touched. The narrator had some secrets, and he didn’t want his mother to know these secrets, so he didn’t dare to touch his mother. He prayed every night that he could vanish. He started writing some letters about committing suicide.
4.The narrator described a scene in which he faced a mantis and thought that he had created some energy field between them. And later, his mother discovered his writing on committing suicide.
5.The narrator described a scene in his memory: his mother sitting in front of a mirror, putting on some makeup, while listening to a radio program which always began with the song WELCOME TO MY WORLD.
--I like this part very much it reminds me of the film LIKE THE RELENTLESS FURY OF THE POUNDING WAVES (1996, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, A+), which also concerns a radio program and memories.
--The text in NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD also mentions the song TOM TRAUBERT’S BLUES by Tom Waits. So I copy the lyrics of the song here:
Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did
Got what I paid for now
See ya tomorrow, hey Frank can I borrow
A couple of bucks from you?
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English and everything's broken
And my Stacys are soaking wet
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
Now the dogs are barking and the taxi cab's parking
A lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me, you tore my shirt open
And I'm down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill's I staggered, you buried the dagger
Your silhouette window light
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinaman and the cold-blooded signs
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
No, I don't want your sympathy
The fugitives say that the streets aren't for dreaming now
Manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories
They want a piece of the action anyhow
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
And you can ask any sailor and the keys from the jailor
And the old men in wheelchairs know
That Matilda's the defendant, she killed about a hundred
And she follows wherever you may go
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on
An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers
The night watchman flame keepers and goodnight to Matilda too
--Though what I like the most in NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD is the text, I don’t think that this work would be better if it appears in the form of a book instead of a video installation. I think the book would not be as strongly captivating as the video installation, because though the text strongly captivated me, I still think it had the strong power to captivate me because:
1.I had to divide my attention to watching and listening to the two video screens at the same time. I couldn’t read the text only. I had to watch the mother sitting, the friend digging, and listening to the music. If I can pay attention to the text alone, it might not be that captivating.
2.I couldn’t stop reading the text anytime I wanted and come back to read it later, as in the case of reading a book. The text was flowing steadily. I didn’t have time to focus on any one sentence. The next sentence kept appearing on the screen. And that steady flowing of thoughts and the pacing which was defined by the director, not by the readers, are what made the text more powerful to me. This power would be lost if the text appears on a book, not in the video installation.
--The brochure of NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD also has an interview of Arin Rungjang. The interviewer is Ark Fongsmut.
An excerpt from the interview:
Arin: Recently, someone asked me “How important is it to be a Thai artist?” I answered him, “It is not important at all.” If you ask yourself questions like these, then it will reflect in the way you start to do your work. You may start from the idea of harmonized humanity or start it from the idea of separation between yourself and the other. And if I start from this separation, then we’d probably have nothing else to talk about. I think it is an old strategy.
...
Arin: I’m looking at romanticism through two perspectives; Firstly, I try to deliver my messages about who I am. I accept that I’m gay; maybe my romantic emotions come from being gay, or maybe it is a reflection from society. Secondly, my romanticism might be similar to that of Felix Gonzalez-Torres. As he put it, “It isn’t about the characteristics of being universal, but it is a way to harmonize each other”.
For more information about Felix Gonzales-Torres, please read:
http://www.andrearosengallery.com/artists/felix-gonzalez-torres/
Photos of some works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1019/589854708_d59452c215_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1356/589540009_d2ea9822db_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1410/589540003_36db46bf5d_o.jpg
--NOTE: I tend to use the word “film” in the broadest meaning as possible, so in my writing, “video installation” is also a part of “film” or “cinema”. I hope this doesn’t confuse my readers.
--After finding that it is the TEXT which I like the most in NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD, I think it is a bit strange, because most of the films don’t use texts. Some films use texts, such as Godard’s films or THE RASPBERRY REICH (2004, Bruce La Bruce, A+), but the things that I like the most in those films are not the texts. There are very few films that I find the using of text is the most interesting aspect of them. These films include:
1.THE INSANE (2006, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, A+)
The text in this video installation is actually subtitles of what the insane women said on the screens. But since what the insane women said is very hard to follow, all viewers have to rely on reading the subtitles instead of listening directly to the sound from the 6-7 screens in the installation.
2.TWO WORLDS IN ONE WORLD (2004, Prap Boonpan, A+)
This Thai short film use some text from a history book to argue about some ideas in a Thai film THE SIAM RENAISSANCE (2004, Surapong Pinijkhar, A+).
PHOTOS FROM NEVER CONGREGATE, NEVER DISREGARD
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
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