First meeting with Peter Rostovsky (beware of the messy free thought/ stream of conscious type writing that plagues this blog)

Peter Rostovsky and I had our first meeting on the 27^th of July. I truly admire him as an artist, and a writer. Once we established that if I was nervous, he would be too, the meeting and conversation went well. We began the meeting with Peter having some very specific ideas as to the direction of my work but with conversation and redirection, I believe and hope we are still in the realm of my initial intentions…  

I love that, although, he is a painter, all he wanted to discuss were the ideas behind the work…

In Peter’s own work he looks for ‘moments of pure poetic enigma and he initially suggested that I look for transitional moments in the film that I do not have to artificially reassemble… moments that were already present. What I am doing now he considers interesting but more of a surrealist approach in how I use special effects and create a fictional moment. In his own work, he looks for the uncanniness of the image itself… We both address the question of how to make an image more ambiguous… What I pressed him to consider is the values I see in my current method such as the layering, the abstraction, and the manner in how we each see/ remember moments differently… reconstructed according to our own understanding/ meaning.  

Our compromise…. Finish this painting as he believes it has potential to be a really interesting painting… In the future, try looking for moments less layered and more pure. 

Attitude of mining the film as it might be too simple and overdone but it is something to consider.

I like the playfulness of my work and he sees that and agrees that it is interesting but asks me to consider looking differently as an exercise. If I am to do a immersive scene for my viewer… representing a scene in different ways… possibly, looking for a transitional pre-existing moment in the scene could be one of the ways... 

Definite advice… be less random in my choices. In addition, look for moments the film does what I want it to accomplish for me.

The significance of the painting process – “whats the point?” – the paint becomes another phase of translation… take great liberties or make the choice not to…

Play with abstraction… cropping…

Concept of The Formless… something that sits between categories and undoes them

Roland Barthes… Camera Lucida… the punctum – moment in the photograph with the still image that really resonates with the viewer … elaborated with the third meaning which is the meaning that is in a way inexplicable… goes against the curve and dislodges the scene…

Punctum is not intentional… haunts the photograph…exists for the viewer… Can be isolated and staged

Interesting thought… “the punctum is something you see and that you project upon the film yourself”

Painters to look at… Judith Eisler, Kaye Donachie, Velasquez

Director … Chris Marker… Sans Soleil and La Jetee

Photographer … Uta Barth

Thought to take away… It might be possible to continue in the same direction but to also look for moments that do not need to be so over freighted with special effects…

And yet, I like the special effect so, ... we'll see.