lost it

why do we have to say things? I'm tired of saying things. Nothing has meaning. I can find no meaning. I am becoming numb. I am becoming dead.

she said because we want to make things that we enjoy. joy. joy. we make because it is enjoy joy joy.

joy joy joy enjoy joy joy.
I cannot enjoy joy joy. I do not want to speak. I am tired of speaking.

I don't want to not speak either.

I figured out how gerhard richter makes his abstract surfaces. mine is thin, big surprise; it could be thicker. back and forth. back and forth. it's all just back and forth. there is no meaning. I can find no meaning. I can find no meaning in leaves, branches, trees up close, far away. I can find no meaning in these because they're not real. None of this is real. In an instant, I have lost it all. I can find no meaning. There is no why. I am not those trees. I do know where I stop. I stop here.

go ahead. push paint back and forth. I'd like to go home now. I'd like to be quiet now. I'd like to not speak now. I want to go aware, go away.

why is it that I never can speak when I must? like now. I must do this. I must finish my videos. I must finish my paintings, push them. say them, make them. I don't know what I'm doing. Nothing has meaning. I can find no meaning. I honestly don't know.

she said this is the one thing that can save me. but I've lost it. I don't know where it went. it was there. in the water. I know where it was, but it's so far from here. I can't touch it. you can't touch it. I can't help you touch it. it's gone. I'm gone. I want to go aware, go away.

important words

follow the body. trust in the body.


let, let leave. laisser.

and I know it well.
hidden, all this is hidden.



and we were falling, too.


why am I so afraid to tell the stories for why these are important? maybe it's not about my stories. maybe I want you to connect them to your stories. because these aren't just about one story, they're about many stories. (they're so personal--and I'm not saying why, not giving specifics--and so they are universal). or something. I honestly don't know. I don't know what you are supposed to get out of them. I know they're important because they are where the weight lies.

bowing red blood onto a wall, a chicken with a head. without a head. she wasn't telling stories, either. a mark, a silhouette. traces left.

these are the traces I hold onto. how to make them speak?

oh yeah.

Oh yeah. blogging.

This is what I've been up to:






And this:

follow // fallow from Bonnie Veblen on Vimeo.

And this:

await another voice from Bonnie Veblen on Vimeo.

I took so much footage during and right after break, that I've just been hard at work on all of it as well as several paintings.

With videos, I have been grouping images into shots, then making those into small clips, and editing the clips together. Sound comes a little later, once I've seen the footage, but it takes a long time to work the two out together, and see where they go with each other. With some, like my first lung video, almost all of the footage goes in. With these two, perhaps between 30 and 50 percent went in. I had to re-record sound perhaps 12 times. It doesn't mean I won't use the rest of the images or sound, just not for these two videos.

As for sound, I realize that it's all voice over/whispers so far. I've been playing around with local sounds (wind, water, children playing from far away), but that's not quite right for these. I am getting a little concerned about not knowing how to make something different. While none of these are really the same--each is pushing in a different direction--they're certainly in a family of sorts. They're not sniffing slurping slugs. Yet, I need to remember what Sue told me last year--It would be nice to see you stick with something for a while. I have apparently found something I can stick with better, so that is not a bad thing, just something I'm not very familiar with.

I am afraid that with the whispers I am being too explicit, illustrating ideas and not inviting them. I heard in the last crit that what I said was definitely not too specific, but that was that and these are these. I am also unsure as to what to do for the show (this coming week). Do I re-record in French? Most of the audience will be French. I doubt my ability to whisper clearly in French. I can hardly speak clearly, so whispering might be impossible to understand. I at least intend to have a translation of the words to read. It's not the same, but having everything mispronounced and incomprehensible wouldn't be the same either.

Now I'm currently working on a travel video which has shots from trains/buses/airports, as well as another with footage from the river and woods here. And then there are two paintings to be finished this week in time to dry to be shipped home...

back to work.

final project proposal

I have been continuing to take series of photographs of landscapes as well as my lung x-ray, which I intend to make into videos similar to the way in which I made my previous video honestly don’t know. They will be three separate works, between 2 and 4 minutes long. The subject of the first is my lung x-ray which I have been carrying with me the last few weeks and photographing it while holding it in front of the sun in different landscapes. In this video, I intend to make repetitive sequences of the light moving through my air-tract and heart. For the sound, I will use a more lengthy cut-up of writings that speaks about the relation of body to earth and will record my own voice speaking for this.

For the second video, I took many sequences of images as I traveled between countries over the break, and intend to work with these to create a video concerning stability and disorientation in moving through landscapes. This is related to the last video I am working on in which I have been returning to one spot in the woods for the last several weeks and taking series of photos as the woods have changed in color and quality of light with fall coming on here. In this video, I would like to cut between views of the same spot with and without leaves, showing the same place in different times, and showing the repetitive engagement with a single place I have had. For the sound, I will make voice recordings of thoughts I have been writing the last few weeks, concerning stillness and movement through time and life. For example, “where did we come from? where are we going?” I am also working on paintings of the trees in this spot, and would like to display the video and a painting in tandem together. The video will be projected on the wall next to the painting so that it is the same size, each measuring approximately 3’ x 4’ so that the viewer is able to enter the two views. This will most likely be the final project that I present to the class, though the other videos may help me clarify ideas for this work.

of interest

traveling. two weeks. paris, berlin, the spanish pyranees, london. again a lot of art. with mountains and air in between.

of interest:

Paris
Women's art exhibition at the Pompidou. Jenny Holzer. (again.) She had printed some typed statements on neon paper and plastered a wall with them. six or so columns, each column a different color, a different statement. Statements of dominance, pleasure in oppressing another, playing messed-up mind games. pleasure in another's pain. the unspoken undercurrent of society. This made me think: what if we say things we don't mean, we don't feel? what if we say them, these things that are part of our experience, that drive a society's way of life, but are never spoken about? what if they're so awful we know that she's just pointing them out? and what if it still hurts?
we must confront pain. keeping words and attitudes hidden, unspoken, in the realm of silence just perpetuates silence, a blind eye. we can keep on being silent. at some point we must speak. we must confront even that which we do not like, what we do not want to believe in because it is there. neon. look at me look at me. drawing attention, making an announcement of what we dare not say.
we must confront pain.
Ana Mendieta. (again. and for the first time in person.) I stand with my arms raised in awe. I bow. a gesture of prayer, of gratitude, of submission (submission to what? to whom?) red draws down from her arms on the white canvas, a single motion of bringing togeher, bowing down. the red of body, pain, death, life. red of sacrifice, vulnerability. bow of sacrifice, vulnerability.
there is pain.
we cause eachother so much pain. we cause ourselves so much pain. in the end, what is left is not our body but a mark, a mere remnant of a gesture. her gesture moved through time to me.
there is pain.
we must sit with, stand with, hold our pain. embrace it. bow to it.
in another, she holds a chicken. she held that chicken. upside down, blood rushing to it's head, flapping, must get away. then the calm settles in (as it does). I have held a chicken like this. (is this my body?) it tried to get away. it didn't want to be held. with a head. then layed down, an axe. without a head. and she holds it again. flap flap. jerk. twist, coil, spasm. then the calm settles in. blood all in it's head. blood all out of it's head. blood all out of it's body. (is this my body?) and her there, holding it. she didn't do the chopping, but she initiated it's killing. and she held it. her naked, mourning. (is this my body?) holding it in it's pain. which was her pain. her body naked, vulnerable. no distance or shield between them. could she calm, could she settle? could she relax like the cicken? I didn't want to watch it. I knew it as it was happening, I knew what would happen. But to see it. to not shy away.
there is pain.
we might as well face it. embrace it. hold it. we do not want to cause it, but we do. (she didn't want to do that. but she did.) and she was with the bird as it died. she held it. she took that pain in. (I took that pain in. is this my body?) we know no boundaries. we know no bounds. we bind. we are bound.

there is pain.


(again.) because
Jenny Holzer is:
IT CAN BE STARTLING TO
SEE SOMEONE'S BREATH,
LET ALONE THE BREATHING OF A CROWD.
YOU USUALLY DON'T BELIEVE THAT
PEOPLE EXTEND THAT FAR.

Ana Mendieta is a silueta in the earth. the echo of a body. a body as affecting, a body as affected. a body with thin bounds. (peau si fine.)

honestly don't know (soundscape)

honestly don't know from Bonnie Veblen on Vimeo.

what did I do? what was I trying to do?

I listened to sounds. I noticed how I listen to sound, what I choose to listen to, when I want music, when I don't. I listened to songs on once repeat, which is normal. I listened to my breath, which is normal. I listened to cars from my studio, and cringed as they passed, which is normal.

I looked up roots of words, thought about The Spell of the Sensuous, thought about Leap, translated between french and english, found roots in both. I breathed, I listened. I took pictures of my lung x-ray. I looked at the sumac outside my window.

I cut up the words of Terry Tempest Williams, Nervous but Excited, T.S. Eliot, Patty Larkin, Allen Ginsberg and Mary Oliver into perhaps a thousand pieces, and pulled them one at a time out of a pile, stringing them back together. I saw what was there, and started to play with it. I moved things, cut it down, recorded myself speaking it.

I played on a guitar. I experienced making harmonics with strings for the first time. I listened to right after, my song I play on clarinet, on once repeat. I recorded some basic guitar.

I recorded my voice, my breath. I recorded my voice, my breath. I recorded my voice, my breath. I recorded Latin, French, English. I recorded my voice, my breath. I recorded my voice my breath. Irecordedmyvoicemybreath. I honestly don't know.

I came back to the cut up. I chose. I recorded my voice, my breath.

I put together a video of photographs of a sumac tree and an x-ray of my lungs, my window at home.

What did I want to do? I’m honestly not really sure. I suppose this is a meditation on death and life, and the ambiguity between those. Can we experience death in life? Can we experience life in death? Do we ever really know where we are? Do we ever really know whether we’re alive or dead?

I had to find the sound that was right for the video, to set the tone, guide the viewer's thoughts towards our bodies, impermanence, quietness, death//life, fractures, joy, shyness, hesitancy, being on a border, being the same as another and different from another, being in multiple places at once, and I'm not really sure what else. A huge long cut up was too much, instrumental music was too abstract, and going between breath to Latin to English to Latin to breath was too literal a progression and too abstract//conceptual. I wanted to push the viewer in some kind of direction with the words and my breath, and the quietness, but also leave room for openness.

Perhaps I’m not all that interested in making a piece about sound, but using it in tandem with my images. It's not about one or the other, both support each other. And now I just want to make more.

cut up

I did a cut-up of a lot of different writings//lyrics I was reading and listening to this summer--all of them were incredibly resonant at the time, and still are. I then edited it down and recorded myself reading it. I'm not sure that I like it as a sound piece, perhaps because it's strange for me to listen to my own voice. So while there are some interesting themes running through it, and I really like the repetative, obsessive quality of it, I'm not sure that this is the best form for it. I've thought about putting parts of this to images in a video, but it seems like it might take away from the video footage, or be too explicit. It's not like the hair piece where the words came along with the images. And it's really long, too, so I don't know that anyone would make it all the way through since it's so free-flowing and there's hardly a place to grab on. I need to keep trying some other things with it, I guess.

I also did this recording of me fooling around on guitar, sort of similar to the song I wrote//have been continually improvising with on clarinet, but I don't actually know guitar, so this is a lot harder//more elementary and thus even more repetative. Again, it is obsessive.

One major thing is, I need to figure out what sound goes with my videos, if any. I feel like something should, but I don't know what. This is why I did these two experiments, but they're not right for the video, nor are they completed sound pieces in themselves.

I guess I have a lot of different ways that I appreciate sound, so this is a hard project for me to approach. I have played clarinet for 12 years, so have quite a bit of a formal//classical background in music. I love French music especially--Debussy, Saint-Saens, Poulenc, Jeanjean--pretty much anything rhapsodic, with a tendency towards slower and darker pieces.

In terms of listening to music, I tend to listen to songs obsessively, often preferring hearing a single song to hearing anything else for days, sometimes weeks. I don't know why this is, other than that I simply crave those sounds. And far more often than not, it is the sounds I crave--the harmony and the rhythm--rather than the lyrics. In the last year I have finally started to barely catch and sometimes listen to lyrics, but it is not what I hear first by any means.

In terms of sounds I make with my body, I like listening//feeling the sound of my heart and my breath. I like the rhythm of walking, and the feel, but sometimes don't notice the sound. I like humming and absolutely love reading aloud for the vibrations. I often read aloud to Emma and Jacob, the kids that I have babysat for about 8 years, for an hour or so at a time. I love being with them, and I love reading, and sharing an enjoyment of books with them, but there is also just something very calming and comforting to feel my own (or someone else's) voice run through my body, and to be sharing that with others. My mom read to us as kids, and I think my own satisfaction in this sense of vibration probably comes from that. In this way, recorded sound almost seems like a cop-out because your body isn't actually penetrated by the sound, so it is a strange experience. And yet recordings are the only thing that allow me to listen to the same song//sounds for literally days on end.

I also have an interest in harmonics (and dissonance) as related to quantum physics, schumann resonance, biological receptor molecules, and the fifth chakra//meditation, which all meet up in the back somewhere. I don't really want to make artwork about that. But let's just say, anything that deals with sound deals with all of them in some form or another.

If I were to share anything about sound, it would be the satisfaction of vibration. What about asking everyone to stand in a circle and hum with everyone's hand on the other's back? What about having the group read something? What about engaging a group with live ambient sounds rather than recorded sound? (Recorded sound is technically live, but resonates differently). If I were to use sound convey something, it would be to put to my videos that I'm working on, but I don't know what I want to do with that right now. I don't know what I need to say. I don't know if what I need to say is in words or in sounds or in music I play. I do know that I miss my clarinet, and that I need to go to bed.