Mirror and light
This morning we moved our bodies to the sound of Arvo Part, Spiegel im Spiegel. The Mirror in the Mirror. Or is it glass in the glass? A different kind of letter for the Glass Envelope. Sally’s presence felt reassuring and safe. Andrei Tarkovsky made a loosely autobiographical Film “Mirror”. It remains with me. There is the feeling of a child looking out onto the world. Not inside looking but outside looking. The feeling of rain and its sound. How so? As I moved my body it was as if I found myself in my childhood body and I began to move my hands in the position of a ballerina. As I approached the paper I began to shave viridian pastel dust in the shape of the arc of my movements. I began to push this around the paper with my fingers. Chalk dust, catching the light. This is my earliest memory of being in the world. I was three years old.
The translation of one thing into another was at the heart of the discussion afterwards. How the movement translated itself into the image. How one thing is not the same as another but emerges and comes up out of it in a very different way. It is an evidencing of the experience but a translation of it. How does an image emerge? We talked about unknown and unfamiliar spaces and how we can trust and be open to the poke and the prompt of each other. I sense resistance in me at times but also a hunger for the poke.
Sylwia’s preoccupation with the photographic process and the pinhole camera investigates how light can bounce through darkness to create an image. Making a camera together out of a tea box, tin foil and tracing paper and finding our images on the screen felt magical. Pragya in India captured an upside down image of us all. Seeing through a tunnel of black to the image on the screen. Ean in the USA captured an image of the house opposite. Wonder.
Yesterday I interviewed myself and made a film whilst talking. I hadn’t planned out what to say or where to look or what to show. It just happened and it was very hard for me letting go and just seeing what emerged. It was a surprise to me and illuminating. Uncomfortable and exposing. Like a rabbit in the headlights. Trust is required when we allow ourselves to enter unfamiliar spaces. When we open ourselves up. To let go.