Inflexions 4 - R.U.N. by Paul Gazzola

8/8/2019 Inflexions 4 - R.U.N. by Paul Gazzola

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Paul Gazzola. “R.U.N. A Short Statement on the Work.” Inflexions 4, “TransversalFields of Experience,” (October 2010) www.inflexions.org

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R.U.N.A Short Statement on the Work

Paul Gazzola

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R.U.N. began as an experiment in 2001 that aimed to explore the filmic

relationship between the camera and the body and the use of video as an

extension to the performance pieces I was making at the time. One that would

expand and unfold other viewpoints of the performing body. The process was

born out of my interest to the early experimental films of German avant-garde

artist Hans Richter.1 I had become highly intrigued by his abstracted use of non-

representational forms and structural elements in opposition to each other

(specifically the rectangular and square shapes in Rhytmus 212) that focussed on

their fragmented positive-negative rhythmic interplay. This ordering and

organising of the relationship between parts and his move towards the

dissolution of the subject3 spoke directly to my interests as a choreographer/

performance maker, as I had begun to move away from formal narrative

structures and storylines to concentrate more on the physical arranging and

spatialization of movement and scenographic elements.

I had also at this time been reading the Phenomenology of Perception from

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and his positioning to the need of a second body to

observe ones own self, which I understood as a form of knowing through

surveillance. This idea became complicit in my undertakings as I sought to




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display ‘a perspective of the body in reference to itself’ through a cinematic

experience.

Hence with R.U.N., I began to explore the rhythmic potentiality of movement infilm where the body became another element of the whole - forgoing any

emotional semblance or narrative structure as its guide. And as the work was

initially intended to be screened in connection to the live performance - Bird Talk

#1 -74, I sought to a ‘display an unfolding of time’ as an active process, parallelling

the live experience - by emphasizing movement and the shifting relationship of

elements in time.

One of my initial interests was in the ‘close up’ – in how to show a ‘section of awhole’. I had just finished working on a project in Belgium, and while there I had

gotten into a conversation with a friend about his fathers’ paintings and what he

thought about them. He said, “Well I don’t like them so much as a whole but there are

parts that I like a lot”. Following this idea, ‘to just to show a part of’, was inline

with my readings of the early Richter films and inturn would offer a

counterpoint to the mode of exaggeration that I saw as quite problematic at times

within the staged body. Through the camera’s lens, I would be able to work on a

‘micro field’ of observation within the grand scale of the stage. Opening upground to how the fine detailing of the body could be enlarged and screened in

juxtaposition to the onstage figure.5

Around this time I had also seen two filmic works that had impressed me deeply

through their staging of the camera and use of long unedited durational shots

that gently swept over the human landscape, giving over a heightened sense to

an unfolding of time and space. The first being the installation, From the East:Bordering on Fiction by Chantal Ackerman and the second, the memorable

opening sequence of The Player from Robert Altman. Both of these works gave

me an insight into how the movement of the camera, played against the body




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could draw out other readings, reflecting the rhythmic flow of things, events and

people. S o I got to thinking about how I could develop a work where the

camera movement would match the speed of the moving body and how they

both inturn, could adjust themselves in direct relationship to the other.

Via my own limited financial means, I set out to explore how to make a camera

move whilst still maintaining its framing from a solid viewpoint. A number of

early experiments were made, purely hand holding a camera as well as using

home made versions of expensive steady-cam devices but I quickly came to a

point where the jerky and bumpy nature of this method asked me to search for

another more stable approach. I was also unhappy with the idea that this device

would be fixed to another body as I had the impression that the framing neededto remain a constant but its motion should be fluid. And that it was also not

about the camera becoming connected to another interpretive being. So when

the idea for R.U.N. became clear, the use of a car as ‘steady cam’ seemed the

most logical choice.

It was in the combination of these ideas that set the ground for this work, R.U.N.

R.U.N. - Filmed one Sunday morning just outside of Fremantle, Australia on a

deserted down hill road. A mini-dv camera was secured to the back of a moving

car and my task (as the runner) was to maintain my position within the frame.

Over the short journey of around 4:30 min, the camera recorded this

‘performative run’ whilst a three-way conversation is heard between myself, the

cameraman who sat on the folded down tail–gate of the station wagon and the

driver. These verbal instructions, re-laid back and forth on whether to speed up

or slow down served my ability to run alongside the car and stay in the ‘shot’.The editing process that followed saw the omission of certain frames whilst

leaving the sound track as a constant. Offering a disjointed view of the body in

continuous motion related to its shadowed self.6




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Notes

1 Hans Richter - April 6, 1888 – February 1, 1976. Painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer.

2 See - http://www.ubu.com/film/richter.html

3 Influenced by cubism and its search for structure, but not satisfied with what it offered,I found myself between 1913-1918 increasingly faced with the conflict of suppressingspontaneous expression in order to gain an objective understanding of a fundamental principle with which I could control the ‘heap of fragments’ inherited from the cubists.Thus I gradually lost interest in the subject – in any subject – and focused instead on the positive-negative (white-black) opposition, which at least gave me a working hypothesis

whereby I could organize the relationship of one part of a painting to the other. - HansRichter, “Easel-Scroll-Film”, Magazine of Art, No. 45 (February 1952), p. 82.

As taken from the Online Journal - Senses of Cinema and the essay on HansRichter by Richard Suchenski, a joint Ph.D. candidate in Film Studies andHistory of Art at Yale University.

4 The Bird talk series began in 1997 as Bird talk #3 - a 20-minute study on the roleof mimicry and repetition in our education and how this forms the basis oflearning processes. The ongoing nature of this project saw its expansion to an

exploration of uniqueness in choreographic practice and the follow up work -Bird Talk #1 -7 in 2002. Performances have taken place in Australia, Germany,Portugal and South Africa.

5 My ongoing interest to the relationship of the body and film continued onwithin many works at that time such as Spin Solo/Spin Double and the Assistedsolo series. Other works that have been created since include YEP/Videoplayback, TWO and The Street Walk series. See www.paulgazzola.blogspot.comfor more information.

6 In this notable work, Gazzola established the ground-rules for his many subsequent

projects – of movement vs ‘dance’; performer vs spectator; illusion vs revelation. Andthrough it all, the tense dynamic of a body framed whilst subjected to ‘the gaze that isoutside.’ Andrew Gaynor – Points of View. Catalogue essay. Sara AspergerGallery, Berlin 2009.

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Inflexions 4 - R.U.N. by Paul Gazzola