| Paul Evan Hughes
MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Goddard G1 Packet05 Dear Ruth, I hope that this packet finds you well and enjoying the spring. I guess I’ll jump right in and say that I’ve not done a lot of reading or writing for this packet. Most of my work has gone into the time-consuming process of editing together the video. I poured myself into that process because of several reasons. On a Sunday afternoon, I was looking at rings with Susan. I’d spent the weekend with her at her parents’ house, and it was time to take the next step. We’ve known each other since 1996, and these last few months have been amazing. That Wednesday, after a few days where she had seemed increasingly agitated and distant, she wrote to tell me that she needed some time apart. She’s been upset about her career and educational path, so I knew that she would need to work things out eventually. After a week apart, she wrote to tell me that she is moving to Seattle with a friend from home to attend art school instead of moving to Syracuse to be with me. I don’t hate her for her decision, as much as my friends do, but the manner in which she told me was perhaps one of the cruelest twists of fate I’ve lived through: email. After all the discussion of reality versus the online world, it would appear that reality is just as much illusion as online personae. After slipping into a deep depression from which I’ve still not entirely escaped, I started working on editing the video together. It has taken on many new meanings to me, as you might see from the end product I’ve included in this packet. I also went home to the farm to try to release some of this negative energy through manual labor. It was not entirely successful; I’ve lost twenty pounds in two weeks and sleep about three hours each night. Although she says she still loves me and hope that our paths will cross again in the future, that has been little solace. I know that my personal problems are no excuse for turning in a mediocre packet, and I apologize. I’ve done the best that I can these past weeks; at one point I wasn’t certain that I wanted to do anything at all but take a bottle-full of sleeping pills and go to bed. The culmination of my studies for this semester seems to be a return
to where I began, questioning illusion, running away. Perhaps this
is a fitting end for this first step of the process.
Video:
Photographs:
Audio:
Webdesign:
Reading:
Writing:
Take care, Ruth.
May 25, 2002
"I have to admit that my first response was not to want to look at more raw footage. I do hope that you have something edited by next time. As a Mac user, I've heard all about the virtues of Final Cut Pro, but it sounds like you've researched to find out which software works for you." I didn’t want to send more raw footage, but my at the time my inept editing prevented me from sending in any assembled material. With this packet, I’ve sent my first attempt at a product that combines the audio tracks I assembled for the first packet with the raw footage that I’ve been gathering since. I feel I’ve now mastered the Pinnacle Studio 7 editing process, and most of the technological hurdles have been overcome. The main issue that I’m trying to resolve right now is a transition error between video and still shots that results in a choppy transition, interspersing the still quite frantically with the video instead of a standard dissolve, creating a strobe effect. I hope to find a solution for this issue soon. Studio 7 is the best video editing program that I’ve used so far, recommended to me by a friend who runs the video lab at Clarkson University. "For now, I do think that it does make sense to have a discussion about the footage so will add what I can. I should start by saying that when I first put the tape in it was reading blank tape. I think I rewound to the part that was new." Sorry, I thought that I’d cued the tape to the new material. "What first caught my attention at that point was all of the shots of the computer. Again there were lots of almost still shots, the keyboard, mouse, you hands typing and words slowly appearing on the screen. I would assume that words like I love you, will be juxtaposed to whatever it happening in the sound." I’ve attempted to assemble the video in such a way that while the images do not always correspond to the audio elements, they do provide an interesting dialogue between the two.. That is, while the images don’t align directly with the sound, they do suggest the same themes that are being expressed. I don’t want the viewer to treat the audio and video as separate elements; I would rather immerse them in the emotional atmosphere of the total project than give them the expectation that what they see necessarily relates to what they hear. Perhaps this is a commentary on the intensely confusing, jumbled mess of an experience that I’m attempting to depict in this project. "I appreciated the movement from the spare shots of the keyboard to the jumble of the cords. I think that you'll be able to use both of those images effectively." This apartment is an expression of such opposed elements: areas of disorder and order beside each other. I’ve been told that my computer desktop is the neatest and most-organized of any computer my friends have seen, yet the actual physical desktop upon which the computer sits is a tangled mess of cords, beer bottle caps, remote controls, pens, etc. This project perhaps doesn’t represent those areas of my life that are indeed ordered and tidy, but that was never the intention. "The pictures of you read very dark. I assume that's how you wanted them to be but this style doesn't let me see much of your facial expression." I wanted to insert images of myself into the project for various reasons, but I didn’t want any clean, full-facial images. One could argue that the way I’ve depicted myself speaks to the shattered atmosphere of the project itself; I didn’t know who I was anymore, so I present only fragments of myself to the viewer: eyes, lips, hands. Certainly, I didn’t feel like a whole person for a long time after last fall’s events. "The visual effect of the smoke seems like it will play a central role. I must say that this packet has less of an olfactory element than the last. I guess the windows have been open more." I’ve tried to make smoke and smoking a central element, working in conjunction with dissolve transitions to subvert an idea of any solidity or stability. "I continue to get a very strong sense of "the sense of being trapped in the moment." I think that your shooting, both the content of the images and the way you frame them, really emphasizes that point." I hope that the edited footage continues to create that response within the audience. I’ve attempted to assemble the clips in such a way that does provide a narrative framework, at least partially, although I wasn’t sure that I would be able to before. The video begins with a clip of one of the planes slamming into the WTC (which becomes a recurring motif throughout the entire video), followed by a series of images depicting the steps up to my apartment, the apartment interior, and the telephone ringing. I wanted to re-create the moment that I first found out; my friend Jonathan called me a little before 9am on that day. Much of the rest of the video is shots of the apartment interior then juxtaposed with the exterior: static inside, motion outside. "As I read your next paragraph, I want to point out that I think that there is a difference between "unconscious" and "aesthetically-driven" shooting. "Aesthetically driven shooting is not unconscious! I think of all of the photographers, whose work I have carefully studied, who have a very precise way of seeing. Some of that may be something they can verbalize consciously, some of it may come from an intuitive space, but it is an intuition that has been honed by careful practice, by looking in a certain way repeatedly over time." I’m still learning the vocabulary with which to express my thoughts on the creative process, but I do see that this observation makes a lot of sense in retrospect. I didn’t mean to imply that aesthetics is divorced from conscious creative decisions. I know that much of my work comes from a place that I am just now beginning to learn how to express; I am now beginning to see that my own motivations and creative intentions that I once took for inexplicable compositional intuition do indeed have a method and more process than simple thoughtless point-and-shooting. "Back to your work, I hadn't noticed that much of action takes place on the periphery of the image, but this is something that I will look for. In terms of the composition, sometimes I see strong diagonals, you do for instance tend to photograph your keyboard at an angle. Often I also see a series of rectangles. You might think about how either style contributes to a sense of stasis or movement within an image." In looking over the footage, I note that many of the diagonal shots are actually quite static in terms of motion within the shot, and the rectangular shots often have more resident motion. Perhaps in the diagonals, the “movement” comes not from any physical element actually moving, but from the viewing process, the eyes being drawn around the shot by the diagonal lines themselves. The rectangular shots rely more on the viewer watching the elements in motion, not tracing the lines themselves. "As you go along I think that it may be useful to consider how your coming to consciousness is reflected in your shooting style. But this consciousness need not be overbearing or overconsidered. I hope that this discussion enhances your intuitive impulse, and does not stifle it." I think the entire process of this project has been a coming to consciousness for me… The videotaping and editing of these images, things that I’ve encountered every day for a year, analyzing the context within which I am putting them in this project, has all been part of the therapeutic aspect of my art that we’ve discussed in prior packets. I know that many of these images will have very little meaning for members of the audience, but each shot is imbued with so many meanings for me. I only hope that at least some of the meaning comes through to the viewers. By presenting these images, I want them to see what I’ve seen and perhaps feel what I’ve felt. "I note later that you state the most of the shots are within fifteen feet of your chair. This already makes for a very contained space. I wonder if you want to vary the amount that you include in your gaze a bit more. There are shots of the outside, or looking out through a window in the last installment but most of this installment included about the same small few feet in a frame. Even from the same position one's eyes can, like a camera, zoom in and out. How tight do you want to make the whole thing?" I’ve attempted to gather clips that are extremely tight, trying to enhance the sense of suffocation and stasis. It goes back to my intention to make the viewer see what I see, and from the placement of the shots, they will see it from my viewpoint. Not all of the shots are from this chair, per se, but the majority are from my eye level. Those shots that aren’t in this apartment, for example the 9-11 stills taken from various media sources, are an obvious departure from my viewpoint. As such, they are presented in a way that obviously opposes the rest of the apartment interior shots. "I then think that you're shooting video, not film. If you were shooting film, each minute is preciously expensive. With video, there is the time element and cost of storing the footage until you erase it, but I am wondering if you could shoot more, experiment more. If you have and are only sending me the "best," let me know." I haven’t been sending only the best clips, but I do have much more raw footage on my computer that I’ve not sent. Much of it is experimental, just testing the abilities of the camera, trying to learn the workings of the machine. What I’ve sent represents the main thrust of the project. What you’ve not seen runs more along the lines of the photographs I’ve shown you. In my undergrad video project, I took about forty hours of analog footage for the 104-minute end product. I don’t know exactly why I’ve not taken a similar amount of footage for this digital project, but I think it deals with the fact that since the beginning, I’ve had very specific ideas about what images I wanted to appear in this project. Perhaps I’ve been unwilling to approach it in an experimental way to preserve the original intent, although I know that I’ve shifted the focus from a broad-based discussion of 9-11 to an intimate portrayal of my own emotional aftermath. "I suppose that I should also comment on the audience discussion. It certainly is legitimate to create art for oneself, but art can also be a form of communication. I also appreciate your desire to make something that is introspective and "therapeutic." Fine, that is a perfectly reasonable intention and one that we can acknowledge. But especially given your process, and all of the past personal work that you have shared on-line I still want to ask, does the therapy come from the making of the work, or also from showing it and getting audience response?" This is a question that I’ve considered at length, and I’m still having trouble coming up with a cohesive response. Especially during this stage of the video project, I’ve been thinking about when and where I will be able to show this to people. One answer would be during peer/advisor groups at Goddard at the next residency, but I’ve also been considering submitting it to ifilm.com and atomfilms.com, and I’ve been approached by the Red Banks film festival in New Jersey to submit work for an August festival. Instead of creating a project solely for myself, I have to realize that it is worth showing to other people, even if they don’t understand it. I’ve written and created material online for years, gathering feedback from my online community. Perhaps with this project it would be interesting to see how a collection of writing that began for a webpage can make the transition into a video project that people with no connection to my network at all can see. I know that at this point the video might appear self-involved, indulgent in my own psyche, but I’ve often created other artistic or literary projects before that were just as blatantly me-oriented. I often have a desire to let people into my mind, at least a little bit. So many people at Goddard seemed to be fascinated by the extent of my network of pages, wanted to know more about me and my creative process. I’m not used to that; I often take my creations for granted, not realizing that most people don’t run a giant network, don’t live the stereotypical bohemian lifestyle of the starving artist. I guess I create for myself and to a growing degree those people who are curious about what makes me tick. It might seem a vain and selfish desire, but I do like it when people are curious about my persona. "Have you checked out some of the sites we mentioned at the residency? Is there a way to borrow stuff from Syracuse? Can you go to film screenings there? Or crash screenings for film history courses?" I’ve been watching many short films from ifilm.com and atomfilms.com, most of them created by amateur filmmakers who have uploaded their material for viewing. I have looked into acquiring material from the SU library, but I’ve not yet applied for a non-student library membership. One interesting note is that the apartment that I will soon be moving into is right above a student-run gallery space, and starting next fall there will be weekly film screenings on Friday nights. I’ve joined their email list and received notice that they are accepting submissions from around the world, and hope to show quite a few shorts and features each night. It will also provide an opportunity for me to submit and hopefully show my own work before an artistic community. I hope to gain some contacts in the Syracuse video/film scene through this gallery. Photos "I did go to your site and try to check out the new work. Next time, tell me where you stopped so I'll know precisely where to look. After the first few Susan ones I noticed a very different style--dark and silhouette." It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to take those images. Rainy Saturday morning, watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and the room provided a beautiful play between light and dark. I wanted to take some shots that were a stark contrast to earlier images of Susan, which had for the most part been colorful and well-lit. The conditions were right, and I took advantage of it. "I think that the etc ones are an important line of exploration. I appreciated the one that showed your workspace. There is certainly no need to shoot in traditional Hollywood style, but I liked seeing an occasional establishing shot. Seeing more of the whole of the space gave me more of a feel for it then just seeing the details. Of course it's legit to not give the viewer that perspective, to emphasize the claustrophobia but I think that is a decision that you need to consider carefully." I have attempted in the edited video footage to give the viewer several extended establishing shots before delving into the specifics. Maybe it is the size of this apartment that heightens the sense of suffocation for me; another reason I’m soon moving. This space carries too many memories. "I also think that, like it or not, people will read images metaphorically, so why not take responsibility, play with it instead of leaving it up to the viewer?" In the photographs I took for this packet, I did play with the metaphorical aspect of the images, choosing to re-create as exactly as I could still shots of a tree outside of my parents’ house that I had previously photographed in early March. I shot it again in early May, but of course now they are completely different images, full of color and grass and leaves. The tree itself is now bent to a different shape because of the weight of the leaves, but I tried to align the images as meticulously as possible to the original. I included these stills in the video, and those whom I’ve let see the edited version so far have commented that the tree images are among their favorite, carrying with them a blatant metaphorical expression of change, metamorphosis from winter to spring, death to life. I will continue to explore the possibilities of meaning-laden images in future work. I’ve begun to look at the photographers that you listed in the last bit of dialogue. I’ve also been obsessively watching Chris Marker’s “La Jetee.” In retrospect, I see that the Susan images I included in the edited video remind me a lot of Marker’s images of the female lead from La Jetee, smoky dissolves with a disconcerting hint of movement at one point. I would like to see more of Marker’s work, and I’m actually considering doing a project along the lines of La Jetee for next semester, a collection of still images transformed into a coherent narrative. I wrote a screenplay years ago that might make the transition well; I will consider this further this summer. Audio "As there is always a lot to look at and listen to in your packets I just listened to the final towoundfinal01.wav. What a surprise to hear the male and female voices intertwined. To me it was as if I was hearing two sides of a relationship. With the visuals, I wouldn't necessarily think that I was hearing two perspectives as much as two different voices going on in one person's head. Did you remix this is light of our previous conversations?" The male/female intertwined motif has been in the second musical gesture since our conversation about why I chose to use a female voice to read my own words. I wanted the voices to approach the listener at once, instead of disparate elements, to heighten the sense that it is almost one voice instead of a conversation. Perhaps I want the listener to question whose thoughts those are being expressed, since when combined with the video, I present both images of male (myself) and female (Susan). "Overall I felt that the music in the background contributed to the repetitious quality, asking the same questions over and over kind of mood." I am hoping that as a whole, the project combines the audio and video elements so that neither one’s repetition detracts from the whole experience. I would hope that as the audio repeats, the viewer can find something in the video to continue their interest, and vice-versa. I realize that at times the sheer sensory input might overwhelm the audience, disallowing an organized viewing in favor of just having them sit back and let the experience wash over them. I was told by audience members from my undergrad video project that that is exactly what they had to do in parts, just sit back and try to soak in as much as they could, such was the cluttered and confusing atmosphere. Web design "I did take a look at timeforkink a couple of days ago. Am not sure what to say as it is a sensibility, a kind of humor, that I have a hard time relating to. Maybe this is an instance of a generation/gender gap. But that is my problem, not yours. If I remember correctly, there was a part about signing a petition and all the variations on a name that I found quite funny. I was also surprised to see a reference to your packet and to quite sophisticated theory in your first entry. Would readers be able to follow you?" I will be the first to admit that timeforkink.com is not a site made for a wide audience. It appeals to a very distinct sense of humor that merges mean sarcasm, crude language and pop-culture analysis into a gaudy, brash format. I never thought that I’d create a site like this, but I decided to based on the popularity of my monkey list at ifihadamonkey.com. Much of that audience has now begun reading timeforkink.com as well, leading to the biggest startup traffic of any site I’ve ever made. The audience, as far as I can tell, is college student-based, my own disgruntled internet generation, and a tight circle of friends who share the same sense of humor. There are already sites like this out there; mean-spirited pop culture observations are quite popular in reaction to the corporate drivel that saturates the media. I decided to incorporate segments of my Goddard packet four into an article I wrote just to show how ridiculous a conversation between someone who speaks in academic-speak and a contestant on one of the many inane dating shows would be, where the contestants seem to speak a language of their own, an annoying mix of pop slang and mindless drivel. "Sometime I do think it would be interesting for you to do an art site, even to make animated gifs that come out of your photography as opposed to one's that remind me of clip art." I plan to purchase several new sites this summer and one will be developed into an art site. I’m not sure about the name yet, but I hope to use several online contacts from my community to showcase digital artists and explore my own creative process further, especially along the line of digital photography. Writing "I did read through this section, but don't know what I can offer in terms of comments. This seemed like a more lengthy section, with lots of plot line than some of what you have sent in the past. I was curious as to how you dealt with human, vs. non-human, or should I say cyborg. Have you done much reading on cyborgs?" Although I’ve not done any reading on cyborgs, I’ve always been a big scifi dork, watching probably hundreds of different films and television programs in which one or more characters are a mixture of technology and flesh. I find the possibility of human-like machines integrated into human society fascinating. Even present technological advances like mechanical hearts, artificial replacement organs, bio-mechanical limbs, all present a variety of questions about the integration of the human organism with something non-human. Much of my science fiction writing deals with bio-mechanical organisms in a nonchalant way, as if the characters take for granted that some people will not be constructed of flesh and blood. Perhaps it speaks to my exploration that we’ve discussed before of hypermediacy, attaining the highest semblance of “reality” that we can. Cyborgs would just be a remediated human being, taking technology to the point of indistinguishability with humanity. An End presents a mix of artificial humans; some are obviously antagonists, but others pass as humans well enough to evoke sympathy from the human characters, even love in the case of characters Task and Elle. I like to explore the question of what happens when technology becomes so indistinguishable from humanity that flesh loves machine. As someone who has “fallen for” a person online, I think I’m exploring these lines as a way of dealing with the reality/online dichotomy, and what happens when those lines are blurred or crossed entirely. "It is particularly interesting to me because you say that you have drawn many of the characters from your life. When I read fiction but particularly science fiction there is always the question of how much relationship I, the reader, will have with the characters, how much depth they will have, how much they will become whole formed individuals for me. Since you say that your work is personal, I wonder if I will find this here. Most of what I've read is what would be termed "feminist" science fiction, so there is still a strong element of character development in the traditional sense. In your case it is hard to tell. I am jumping in the middle. There are tender moments but also a lot of gore and action. I don't get a detailed sense of the characters from what I've read." I know it must be difficult for you to read this novel, jumping in as you are over half-way through the main storyline; I’m sorry to start things out that way. As a whole, An End is a tragic story of children taken from the safety of their homes on Earth and made to wage a war against an enemy they can’t comprehend. I try to juxtapose scenes of tender moments with scenes of violence to show the uncertain world within which they live. At this point in the story, all of the character development has already taken place, and I am exposing major plotlines for the steady reader. I know it might be a shortcoming as an author to stop developing characters and just let them ride on backstory laurels. "Another question is the extent to which the plot is inspired by or comments on conflicts in modern life, taking them into the science fiction realm, to put them in another perspective. Again I don't have a clear sense of where your work is going. Is this an issue for you? What is it that attracts you to the genre of science fiction?" I began writing the third part of this book on September 10th, 2001, and couldn’t write for two months afterward because I had planned a grand storyline of a terrorist attack that kills an entire planet’s population. When I began writing it again, I found my storyline a tempered version of what I had originally intended, drawing directly from the events of the time to show the loss that the characters felt. I also feel that this work comments on modern life through its exploration of interactions between humans and technology, and where the line becomes blurred. I am attracted to the genre of science fiction because of the fact that it allows me to completely create another world, fill it with what past events and technological advances that I deem worthy of that particular history, and create characters who have been affected by worlds and histories that we ourselves have not been. I write in the “hard” science fiction sub-genre, where future worlds are based directly on extrapolated technological and scientific advances. The story doesn’t focus on exotic aliens or planets, but humans interacting with technology. I’ve been told by friends that I seem to be the only science fiction author they know of who doesn’t believe in little green men. Annotations "I wonder if this desire to experience that "is seamless and indistinguishable from reality," is more prevalent in the US than Europe. I probably have said this before, but I think that this seamless narrative is a characteristic of American TV and Hollywood film. Are you for instance familiar with Fellini's work (say 81/2 or Amacord)?" I guess I’m as guilty as most people of not taking into account the rich world of creative expression that lies beyond these borders; the Goddard experience is curing me of that more and more! I’m not familiar with Fellini’s work, but I will become so. In the past, I’ve been enamored with Jean Pierre Jeunet’s work, like the City of Lost Children and Delicatessen, so perhaps it’s time to start exploring beyond the US again. "I was interested in our comments about hypermedia and CNN. I've only watched CNN on TV; are you referring to the web cases?" My comments were directed at the television version of CNN, which is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the online version, as are most news networks. The extent to which a standard television news broadcast is become a multimedia event is a fascinating evolution to me. "It was harder for me to get a sense of Singer's book. I am glad that you are reading about film and encourage you to continue to do so. I think that the distinction that you/the author makes between realism and formalism is an important one to think about. I am not sure that I completely follow how the author defines formalism, but it would seem that you might often rely on formalist devices in your video style. What do you think?" Singer says that “the formalist approach is attuned to the manner in which even a realistic presentation, however absorbing it can be, is very different from anything in the real world that may have been photographed.” He implies that the formalist approach deals with the way in which an artist imbues every image with meaning through the act of photographing it, whereas a realist would argue that they are simply re-presenting an aspect of the visible world for viewing in another space without adding a meaning to the image. In the context of this video project, I know that I very specifically chose each image for inclusion, and although an image like a keyboard swirling with cigarette smoke might not have an inherent meaning, in this context, it represents so much more: my vision, my history.
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