My friend Darko is making films which he now posts on YouTube since his banishment from Facebook. His films could also be called "experimental" or "avant garde" but I find these terms too ill-defined and dated... I would rather call his films "personal poetic expression".
"Thinking About You"
There are many questions one might ask.
Who is to provide an answer?
What's the point of creating an enigma if people demand an answer?
Well, at least Darko does provide some notes which may be helpful:
The work was realized in the immediate vicinity of the building in which I live with the intention of returning the nature to the reflection of obscurely playful light and ending my dark thoughts created in a relations with the urban environment. It may or may not be associated with the video interpreted before. By "irritating" early morning lights with my pocket photo cam, I removed / mystically covered architectural objects from the raw shots and drew a film image to the idyllic picture of a grandmother and grandchildren who were in the mood to participate in this video.
Eat. Sleep. Dive. A simple, monastic existence for 15 days. Breakfast at 7.30am, freediving from around 10.30am to 2.30pm, return to shore, wash gear, rest and recover and maybe do some shopping in the local markets until dinner at 7.30pm. In bed, exhausted by 10.30pm. Next day, repeat. No TV, no newspapers, no social media. The only variations to the schedule were breathing and strength exercises and some pool work. The staff of Bali Reef Divers Resort were more than happy to let us drop a weight belt to the bottom of their 2m pool and do static breathholds with reflections of palm trees dancing on the surface above. This was our life in Tulamben, Bali over two weeks in July-August 2023. The diving was spectacular. Breath-taking. Mind-boggling. From six or seven metres of visibility in Port Phillip Bay to 15 – 25 metres of viz off the north-east coast of Bali where the water temperature was between 26 and 29 degrees every day. From shivering in 9 – 12 degrees on land and wearing thi
Darko has recently introduced me to multimedia artist Maria Korporal. Of Dutch origin, Maria lived in Italy for many years but she has lived and worked in Berlin since 2014 . Her artistic production includes video art, interactive projects, installations. Her multimedia work has been designed using a wide variety of techniques. The narrative aspect, both personal and social, plays a major role in her work which together with the directness of the images and the sounds leads to greater participation of the viewer. In her work she plays with virtuality and reality, with undergone and artificially generated experiences. Most of her projects deal with social and environmental issues, often with an ironic approach. A good example is her project Korporal Zoo , a series of video works made between 2010 and 2018, which observe the animal and human world from several perspectives: cultural, social, environmental. Over the last two years Maria experienced the world as extremely turbulent
Many years ago over a period of 5 years, I made 3 short films which were intended as companion pieces: "My Belle" "Hey Marcel..." "Queen of the Night" I had always hoped that one day I would show them together as a "triptych" in a public space, but that never eventuated. I did realise a sort of unification of the three under the heading " TRIPTYCH" when I remastered and released them on DVD via Artfilms . Recently I decided to create a short experimental version which would present the three separate films as panels on a single screen. Finally, forty years since I created these films, I have realised that dream with a lot of help from two people in particular. First, Bill McDonald who composed the music for each of the three original works. I was very lucky that Bill was introduced to me by our mutual friend Robert Ratti, who also starred in "Queen of the Night". Bill's music for the three separate films fitted them li
Thanks dear friend, your blog is the refugee space for my works...
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ReplyDeleteOne comment is more than enough in this case Darko, and it is great to have you on board. Keep them coming!
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I wrote it just once Peter something is wrong with the blog engine...
DeleteOkay, not really a problem Darko... it doesn't happen very often.
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