Gaze of the Gorgon
In light of the comments in the KU emails today, here is a precis, nay a trace, of my research and reflections for today..............
Using words as triggers for my work.
Tony Harrison, what a guy!
He didn't just write Gaze of the Gorgon as a poem. It is a film-poem.
Stunning stuff to which I aspire. I have never made a video,
perhaps I should try?
Can a video be drawing?
Could I make a video in collaboration with a poet?
Harrison produces contemporary responses to public events that are made available via the media. These events form his core issues. Could these be my core issues also?
During the brainstorm on wednesday it was suggested that I examine the story about the cartoons and the prophet mohammed. This was in the context of 'destruction'. So many media stories are about 'destruction' in various contexts anyway, perhaps responding to media stories definately becomes my core issue? Certainly there are plenty of dissonant themes in the media, which is how I would describe the core issues of my recent work, pre KU anyhow.
Destruction, denyal (crossing-out or making illegible) and erasure are not my core issues. These are my working and drawing processes that are appropriate conduits for conveying ideas and meaning in my work. So perhaps I have come full circle here? Perhaps my core issues are man's inhumanity to man, my working method is to collect media stories, aphorisms, testimonies and other language/words (like poetry) to which I respond. During the making and drawing process I use destruction and erasure to assist in conveying my ideas? I still wish to remake work using the traces and residue from the destruction and erasure process although I feel strongly that the context and my intent must justify this element. More thinking to do......................................................................................................
Before I sign off here are a few of my favourite lines from Gaze of the Gorgon, deliciously assonantal and alliterative,
Before these Germans went to fight
they'd been beautiful to kiss.
This is the Kaiser's Gorgon choir
their petrification setting-in,
grunting to the barbed wire lyre
gagging on snags of Lohengrin.
(The narrator reads these lines against a backdrop of archive footage showing the mutilated faces of German soldiers.)
Using words as triggers for my work.
Tony Harrison, what a guy!
He didn't just write Gaze of the Gorgon as a poem. It is a film-poem.
Stunning stuff to which I aspire. I have never made a video,
perhaps I should try?
Can a video be drawing?
Could I make a video in collaboration with a poet?
Harrison produces contemporary responses to public events that are made available via the media. These events form his core issues. Could these be my core issues also?
During the brainstorm on wednesday it was suggested that I examine the story about the cartoons and the prophet mohammed. This was in the context of 'destruction'. So many media stories are about 'destruction' in various contexts anyway, perhaps responding to media stories definately becomes my core issue? Certainly there are plenty of dissonant themes in the media, which is how I would describe the core issues of my recent work, pre KU anyhow.
Destruction, denyal (crossing-out or making illegible) and erasure are not my core issues. These are my working and drawing processes that are appropriate conduits for conveying ideas and meaning in my work. So perhaps I have come full circle here? Perhaps my core issues are man's inhumanity to man, my working method is to collect media stories, aphorisms, testimonies and other language/words (like poetry) to which I respond. During the making and drawing process I use destruction and erasure to assist in conveying my ideas? I still wish to remake work using the traces and residue from the destruction and erasure process although I feel strongly that the context and my intent must justify this element. More thinking to do......................................................................................................
Before I sign off here are a few of my favourite lines from Gaze of the Gorgon, deliciously assonantal and alliterative,
Before these Germans went to fight
they'd been beautiful to kiss.
This is the Kaiser's Gorgon choir
their petrification setting-in,
grunting to the barbed wire lyre
gagging on snags of Lohengrin.
(The narrator reads these lines against a backdrop of archive footage showing the mutilated faces of German soldiers.)
posted by maria edney at 5:00 AM
3 Comments:
Hi Maria
I very much like your idea, in a previous section, of a participatory event - you also talk of video, can a video be a drawing?
Obviously a video can be documentation of the drawing process, whether it can be considered as a drawing in its own right I'm not sure - I'll have to think about that one a little more.
If an installation can be drawing on space, maybe a video can be drawing on time?
Lynda
Group 5 – Mentor
Dale Cochrane
daleco@gmail.com
My degree is in Graphic Media Communication, my specialism is illustration. Myself and a group of others set up a creative design business called chemistry is cooking.. i now work with one of the former members of this group - our work can be seen on www.dogsalad.com. i am located in Bradford where i teach on a part time basis(25 hrs!) at Bradford College on ND Multimedia. i am also course leader on a schools program, Fashion and Interactive Use of Media. I am currently studying on PCET HE - teacher training on a part time basis.
Lynda Cornwell - http://visual-language.blogspot.com/
Maria Edney – http://mariaedney.blogspot.com/
Introducing yourself to your mentor:
Can you each individually contact your mentor and introduce yourselves with a short paragraph.
Enclose you weblog address and email address.
Mentors have agreed to feedback to you weekly, offering support, entering into discussion and putting forward references etc…..
Project feedback from Mentors and students can be placed on the project blog.
Mentoring will run until the last week of May 2006, so for the next 8 weeks.
I hope you find it a useful support and will feed directly into your project.
Maria:
Yes, words are important and trigger ideas and are ideas! I've been to the Michelangelo drawing exhibition at the British Museum recently. I really recommend it to you. He was also a poet and you can read and see some of the letters and poems he wrote during his lifetime. It is wonderful to be able to see his handwriting and how he worked out his drawings. Here's something he wrote towards the end of his life:
Relieved of a troublesome and heavy burden, my dear Lord, and freed from the world, I turned wearily to you, like a fragile boat passing from a terrible storm to a pleasant calm. The thorns and nails and both your palms, together with your kind, humble, merciful face, promise to the sinful soul the grace of deep repetance and the hope of salvation. May your holy eyes and pure ears not respond with rigorous justice to my past life; may your severe arm not stretch out towards it. May your blood alone cleanse and remove my sins; and may it move abound the older I am, with ready help and with complete forgiveness.
by Michelangelo - 16th century
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