First day at Salzamt.
I couldn’t sleep at all last night. There were thoughts in cubes all over my head: Where in the bed are my socks? Should I put them back on? Am I too tired to go to sleep? What was the wording on my mobile contract and will we speak German or English in the shop when I try and sort it out? Is that the heating coming on? Is it here they do Sachertorte or somewhere else? Was I polite enough to the woman when my suitcase fell down the escalator onto her? I don’t know why they were shaped like cubes, these thoughts, but since it wasn’t sleeping that’s how my head presented them to me.
But I slept in, for hours, and since then it’s been a productive afternoon in my brand new studio with the Danube just under the window and the occasional boat. The studio is huge. I look behind me at the yards of floorboard and wonder what is to be done with it. Because I’m here at a table by the window peering through a macro lens. I’ve been experimenting with two new lenses and some new very sharp pencils. Just material research so far – looking at how a pencil can make tracks across paper. This video is one thing that emerged, perhaps because it’s so cold outside but not quite snowing.
Really though, I want to be looking at cuts: how cuts in video might be like folds, and how these cuts and folds in video editing might relate to drawing. I’m reading John Berger on drawing at the moment, and something about the Dutch artist Armando who pushes pencil across paper without ever letting us forget that this is a pencil and this is paper. And cuts?
Tomorrow:
– make any kind of a video with cuts
– sort out sim card
– give small artist talk at 5pm
Testing out some new lenses and a newly sharpened pencil.
