Coil of Koi in Dark Water, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.

Finished, unless I slightly whiten some of those Koi edges. I sparingly brushed the koi with some translucent paints (vellum, blue, orange, yellow), which glimmer. The fish have a pearlescence that you can see if you tilt the painting in the light.

They are like angels rising from Dante's Inferno.



Earlier version: 


Coil of Fish, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.


I have rubbed this out many times! Was going to scratch the koi out and add oranges, yellows, golds; so far, it's not working. I used a wooden toothpick to scratch the koi out, but the underpainting of acrylic 'bone black' had dried too much, leaving them with a ghostly presence.

They are like angels rising in dark water, and I may have to just accept that.

In process!

From my recent NaNo novel: 'When the plump Chinese lady who owned the store came over to feed the koi, the fish swirled to the top of the tank, a mass of watercolours and oils coiling and curving and looping in and out of each other as each fish rose to eat bits of the koi feed. Their gills translucent against the misted windows of the store.

The glass thinned, melted and the koi are flung out of the tank as the water rushed out, a coiling, spawning tidal wave. The gills of the koi became soft wings, they grew like when you drop a stopper of ink into water and patterns of ink coil and flow outwards and upwards as they disperse. The koi’s filmy, translucent wings spread and grew thinner as they rose, a coiling mass of golds, oranges, yellows and browns, a living tree spinning upwards, a whirlpool of fish like leaves flowing into the sky, for the ceiling had disappeared.'

An email notification on Sep 26, 2011:

The user named KiNo just added you as a contact on Vimeo.

KiNo's profile on Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/maneatingseas

The email still unread, a few nights ago I clicked on the link. There are a series of videos of the "Poet of Sound and Image," a young man with a British-style accent who is likely of Russian origin called KiNo. KiNo writes songs, is a performer, a public personality.

His films are oddities in that they seem composed of a mash of images that are flung together without planning or thought. Are they brilliant postmodern montages of contemporary life or bits of filmic captures, the kind we would all have on our cameras if we walked around filming ourselves in the city? Are they a 'found poetry,' meaning not pre-planned but plucked from many hours of video and spliced together in an almost random way?

The video I chose (or it chose me, for I am never sure about this) for this week's VidPoFilm seems a patching of sequences of images together with a voiceover (by different narrators, one fully in Russian with no subtitles) that gives depth to the moving images of the band of musicians as they visit a medical museum, set up and perform before an audience, look at buildings, drive around in taxis, and disappear into Central Park discussing the moon with backpacks at night at the end.


Live! — Part 3 from KiNo on Vimeo.
Poet of Sound and Image KiNo presents a film in episodes: Live!
Documentary of life and collaborations in New Vague City.

This film is dedicated to my friend Ira Cohen who passed away recently; leaving behind a materialised account of the akashic records in his poems, photographs, films and inspiring conversations with the individuals whom were graced by his friendship.

With highlights from the KiNo Exhibition — Invasion from Within.
Featuring footage of the performances with musical legends Malcolm Cecil (Pioneer of electronic music) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths).

Ira Cohen film
The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda
http://www.arthurmag.com/?s=the+invasion+of+thunderbolt+pagoda

Made by 9
_

This film is ostensibly a memorial to a poet who KiNo knew and loved, Ira Cohen, 1935-2011.

Ira Cohen narrates a poem, presumably his, and, while it isn't until the end, because it is the core of the video, I place it here:


But nothing is dwelt on; nothing lingers. We move quickly. The video opens with a man walking up steps from a dark interior, like a boat's hold, to a square of light, and Cohen's voice, "Poetry may be next to prophecy, but I also know life is next to death, that sanity lives next door to insanity."

There are shots of a camera lens, with the subtitle, "optical purgatory," a name KiNo gave to a song he wrote about transcendental dreaming. A poem is recited by a woman in Russian, subtitled, "yes, please, rise us from the dead."

What follows is a smorgasbord of images. These is a skeleton on display and a brain on a stainless steel stem, images which I found took us into the strangeness of the body itself. We are in the realm of medicine, the body, it's construction, mortality. Subtitles appear, "we are still in the realm of blood and tears." Then, moving escalators, an old lecture room, a man's head in silhouette against a brown wall with name stickers on it. A silhouette of a hand, angelic clouds, "your palms hold a million starts to new legion of stars," a silhouetted woman in profile with her hair in a bun passes by. "But, man, permit us to land. At home, I am innocent..." and something that looks like tags on a wall showing the solar system with the silhouette of the back of a man's heading watching.

An older man's voice begins, Cohen's, and his poetry is the most interesting aspect of the videopoem. He says, "radio waves bouncing around in the void," and bright sparks from soldering metal appear.

KiNo narrates, "and this is the natural course in the events of the energy," while the camera zooms in on an office, bare concrete walls, a desk, two chairs and a white business phone. Then KiNo in white on a white couch being interviewed by a woman in black with long wavy auburn hair who speaks English, "You're a poet of sound and image...?"

Then an announcement, subtitled on screen beneath a brain on display, "KiNo Sonic Exhibition in June - Invasion from Within (Russian Announcement)." Dramatic zooming in on the brain, dramatic lighting. The music instrumental, gritty. An older sound technician or musician or professor, in a sound studio, equipment all around, enunciated KiNo, the name, then we see the brain again. This is followed by KiNo in a room with walls of controls, like the interior of spaceships in the movies. The older man keeps talking, but in Russian, and no subtitles are offered. Next we are on the street, looking with the hand-held camera lens, it is summer; then we are looking down from a second floor to an art gallery and an older man is looking up at us. There is strobe lighting an art opening, lots of people talking, though we never see the actual art.

KiNo appears in black, smiling. Cut to another scene with a band  performing, being recorded, electronic instruments and sound equipment all about. KiNo in black with white markings playing a large keyboard piano amidst other band members. Cut back to the people at the art reception smiling, drinking, watching and being watched, the way people are at such events, catching up with friends and acquaintances.

When the older man who has been narrating in Russian is finished, he turns to the camera, to us, and smiles.

Next is a shot, perhaps from a bridge of a yellow taxi, on a road at night. A voice, KiNo's,  like from a megaphone or public intercom system, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is New Vague City"… "a leased apartment"…. "please remain dishonest (shots of a street at night, pedestrians, car headlights)…extend your fingers where they don't belong… (young designers fixing what look like paper lanterns in a store window) …and operate in total darkness… thanks for believing the New Vague City publicity machine."



This video depicts a world that is not altogether organized. It is an odd assortment of images of a band on tour.

It seems to say, the only plot is our journey through life, and it is a strange trip.



_

A reading of White Fire on CIUT FM in Toronto, 2000
on Nik Beat's show.

Longtime readers of this blog may not have ever seen this side of me, nor have my real life friends. But I can be a wee bit fierce sometimes. I am grateful for the outcome. This is not a review, per say, of this company's practices, but I share the email thread with you so you can see for yourself.


On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:53 AM, Brenda Clews wrote to Podbean.com:

Subject: My Files Deleted?

Notes: I uploaded a file in 2009 that appears to be gone. This is very upsetting as the hard drive that file was on is defunct. Podbean had my only copy. Can you retrieve it? http://brendaclews.podbean.com/2009/08/04/white-fire/ I did not know you deleted files. Most sites do not do this - at least without warning. Sorry to be a bother, but I really would like to download that file. Thanks, Brenda


Contact Podbean 9:47 AM (3 hours ago) wrote to me:

Brenda, Your files were not lost. They were mis-set after a system move. If the files are important to you, you are recommended to use one of our paid plans . Should there be any further question, please feel free to contact us. Have a nice day.

Podbean Team www.podbean.com

To get latest system status update, please follow us on Twitter @podbean_com


Brenda Clews 10:01 AM (3 hours ago) to Contact:

I am shocked. You didn't even *inform* me that my files were deleted! A "paid" plan will get my file back??? Wow. Ok, I am blogging this experience and posting on Facebook and Google+ and everywhere else I can find. I'll just relate my experience which = bad reviews.This is not a good way to treat people who try your site out. Wish I'd never gone near it. And would like to warn others who might consider your site. It's NOT worth it.


Contact Podbean 12:24 PM (1 hour ago) to me:

What ? We restored your account and you gonna to bad-mouth us.


Brenda Clews ✆ 1:42 PM (6 minutes ago) to Contact:

I am so glad and very grateful!

Now that the broadcast is downloaded, you can delete it if you wish. I use a Google Sites site to host .mp3s now, and there is also the trusty Internet Archives.

I know you guys have to eat, live, and so on, too, and need to charge for your services. Only it's not so good to remove a 'freebie's' file without informing them, and then to ask for payment for them to get it back.

But... eh, that's business for you.

Thank you,
Brenda

_

Yes, I got my file back, for which I am most grateful. But I did not like having to let the tigress out to snarl and gnarl at them to get them to behave with a modicum of business ethic! There is not a word of this in their FAQ, or anywhere else on the site that I was able to find before I initially contacted them.

Not a side I normally exhibit, and most people who know me don't know how I can bare my teeth when necessary. Ok. I lost it.

And I don't think this has happened in at least 7 years - when I had to deal with the moving company that transported my household goods from Vancouver to Toronto and offered storage in a warehouse in an outer suburb for $200./month and then more than doubled it to $450./month when my stuff got to Toronto. They could not legally throw my goods out because I had paid them a couple of thousand dollars. I refused to pay for the storage, many cross calls ensued, and when I called about 8 months later, they relented, and finally honoured their original quoted price and let me retrieve my goods before they had even received the bank draft (brothers and a son are awfully handy to have in times like these - we went and moved everything to another downtown storage place in an afternoon).

Sometimes, you just have to let your tigress out. :)

For me, painting is always connecting the inside to the outside. But I discovered a very strange thing a few years ago - that I could draw from my imagination and the figures and images were very like the ones I draw from life. This rather freaked me out, as you can imagine. Now I try to trust 'dreaming with the eyes open while holding a paint brush' ... as a valid process to creating that conduit between the world and whatever happens in the inner mind with its strange and beautiful lunacies.

Susan Munro gave me an incredible acupuncture treatment last night. Tendonitis in my wrist... worn a brace for a month now. During the treatment, with acupuncture needles in my ankles and wrist and hands, in a darkened room, under her healing hands, my wrist felt like floating upwards, and I didn't resist.

When my forearm levitated it felt like blue sky or summer breeze, very gentle... it was as if the energy in the chakras in her hands pulled my wrist up so that the healing energy could surround it fully and completely... never had anything like that happen before, but it was effortless, could have kept my hand in the air for hours... and when I sensed that the treatment was over in the energy of her hands, I allowed my wrist to float down to the small pillow like a feather slowly falling.

"But, Susan," I said afterwards, "Can you levitate my whole body?" I'd sure like to know what floating in the air feels like!!! :) Haha, "No," she said, "No-one has ever levitated in my healings, or had their arm levitate."

Sigh. I still think it's worth a try!

Susan is a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Chinese Herbalist, Acupuncturist, Reiki Master and Esoteric Healer (and sometimes Saint). Oh, and a poet too!

fleurs, la mort, le bouffon..., 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.

Another page in the story of my challenge with black.

...at the edge of the world where flowers drop their petals...

What can I say, fleurs, la mort, le bouffon...

Papytroll Michel (on Facebook) wrote: "Que survivent les fleurs;un leger répit avant de mourrir. Un beau contraste couleurs chaudes/froides et noir/blanc. That survive flowers; a leger respite before of dying. A beautiful contrast warm / cold colors and black / white."

"Papytroll Michel," I responded, "you write poetry, beautiful. And, yes, so close to reality. You have no idea."

Then he came back and wrote another comment: "J'adore aussi le graphisme et le coup de pinceau incisif de ce personnage très empathique. Le trait noir rehausse l'expression et les volumes.J'aurai les moyens financiers, je te le commanderai.J'ai tenu une galerie d'art associative dans les années 1990 à Lyon(sud est france) et visité plus de 300 artistes en 2 ans (verrier-tapissier-céramiste-sculpteur-peintre-plasticien) pour mes émissions radiophoniques sur l'art.De beaux souvenirs me reviennent quand je parcours des oeuvres. J'en présente régulièrement dans mes articles sur ce site. Continues à me séduire, Brenda.

[He translates, or through Google translate, to leave his messages in English also] I also like the graphics(handwritting) and the incisive bow of this very empathic character. The black line(feature) heightens the expression and the volumes.

I shall have financial means, I shall command (order) it you. I held an associative art gallery in the 1990s in Lyon (the South is France) and visited more than 300 artists in 2 years (verrier-tapissier-céramiste-sculpteur-p eintre-plastics technician) for my radio programs on the art. Beautiful memories (souvenirs) return to me when I cross (go through) works. I present it regularly in my articles on this site. Continues to seduce me, Brenda."

VidPoFilm's January 2012 GROUP SHOW is live! Some great video/filmpoems were submitted!

Go and watch video/filmpoems by Steven Mccabe, Alastair Cook, Nathaniel Whitcomb, Marc Swoon Bildos Neys, Nic Sebastian, Dave Bonta, and Brenda Clews.

The Group Show is open to everyone. The only requirement is that it be a video or film poem. Submit your video/filmpoem to be included in the February show here: vidpofilm{at}gmail{dot}com. If you'd like to be included in the monthly reminder email, sent about a week before, send a note to that email address.

http://vidpofilm.blogspot.com/2012/01/group-show-january-2012.html

Three Cocoon-Nests, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.



It is a little Surreal -just think what might hatch from those cocoon-nests... there is something strange about them.

I saw them in my mind last night when I was thinking about what to paint today. What are they? And what will emerge?

While there was a bare tree outside my window, it was too dark to see, and, yes, it's like yesterday's tree, but remember, I'm working in a Moleskine sketchbook, and that page was closed, so I painted from my imagination.

Profile By. R.W. Perkins from R.W. Perkins on YouTube.

General Description

Profile is a stream of consciousness combination of poetry and prose. The visuals of the film were intended to represent the chaos of thought.

Overall Description

There are several stories behind this film. Let's start with the genesis of this film poem. A friend had looked over some of my past written works, then started comparing it to my new films. He made an observation; that much of my older work would be considered stream of consciousness, and that I should try implementing that style in some of my film poems.

As the conversation evolved, this suggestion became more of a challenge; as we then tried to implement rules as to how something stream of consciousness could or would be filmed.

My first thought was the film would have to be written, shot and edited simultaneously, I still like the idea, but for my first attempt I decided it was a little ambitious.

So we decided that the rules would be based mostly around the written word. There were only 2 rules, but they were tough. I had 30 minutes to write, then 30 minutes to do a reading. Whatever I came up with in that hour would be the gospel, no edits or rewrites.

At his website, R.W. Perkins writes, "Both the subject and name of the poem where directly influenced by online social identities, blurbs about one's life creating a narrative of their day. I feel as though many people have begun to reveal themselves through still images and abbreviated phrases, it's almost as though brevity is becoming a new language. This "abbreviated language" in many ways reminds me of poetry. I started thinking of William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just To Say" as a text, a tweet, or blog post. Then I started thinking of the ridiculousness of someone sharing every waking moment of one's life. "Holy shit!" I thought. Sounds a lot like a poet or a writer. What great inspiration for a poem."

R.W. Perkins speaks about the process he underwent making this videopoem, from its inception through to the challenge he gave himself to write and record the poems within a tight timeframe of one hour, changes in the style after watching The Boston Strangler one night, "I was now shooting a 1960-70 action, adventure spy film inspired videopoem,"and the Kerouac and Nietzsche quotes. He says, "I wanted something that felt very gritty and real, like something that you would shoot and post on your facebook page to laugh at with your family and friends. So I started filming and shooting pictures from my iphone. I had just recently fell in love with my new hipstamatic app..."

R.W. Perkins has it all in this video. When I saw it I felt it was a marker of our era. That surely many films of this type will follow, but his was the first. Identity in the twenty-first century is shaped by social media sites. Your life is not contained in your private diaries and photo albums anymore; it's all on-line now. The notion of who we are has never been more global or more revealing.

One's Facebook profile updates and photo albums provide many snapshots of a life. R.W. Perkins has captured that sense of a collided life, a life of snapshots and home videos and snatches of writing. It is a fast-paced life. We describe ourselves to each other. There are millions of us. Facebook is approaching 1/7th of the world's population. It is a social media site that is creating a twenty-first sense of self.

Put it all together and you get, PROFILE. On his website, R.W. Perkins offers his essay on his videopoem, Profiles, as his Profile.
R.W. Perkins "is a filmmaker and poet living and working in Fort Collins, Colorado. A relative newcomer to the independent film scene and literary community, he has worked in video production for five years, producing many television and web commercials as well as many small business documentaries. In late 2009 Perkins created Juteback Productions as a means to showcase some of his more creative endeavors."

Profile is slick, professionally edited - superb timing, a dancing timeline of photos and videos, nothing hand-held here, so a profile that's already public, bare shots of the intimate here and there, a poem of depth that's echoes the Facebook Timeline. Look at the creation and expression of identity; our shifting subjectivities.

Writing this article I went through the videopoem slowly making detailed notes. Rather than summarize, I share with you my notes:

…begins with the speaking lips, moustache and beard appearing… Pink title lettering… then split screens, some present tense, the author/filmmaker, and others from stock footage, older, yet intense… by the end of the introductory title we know we are in the hands of a professional filmmaker, R.W. Perkins comes by this through his day job making commercials and documentaries, but brings those techniques to film poetry. The music has a great beat, tribal ambient. He cuts the video to the music, and it is very effective.

"PROFILE. I am awake," he begins, at the bathroom mirror. There are two images of him, from behind and reflected in the mirror, "prepared and ready for the day, prepared for the onslaught." The dogs get fed on a stage in which the curtains are their lines of stainless steel dog bowls.

The interspersion of Hipstamatic cell phone photos is brilliant. Coloured brightly, they stand out as markers of the photographed and post-processed world we live in.

Coffee is footage from an old diner… and so it goes. The lettering, when it appears, is consistent, and it becomes a striking visual element on par with the video clips and the snappy photos.

The working day is clips of factories from the 1940s: "Laborious: Working Hard OR Hardly Working" and the ubiquitous smiley.

The small pleasures to come of one's life roll up the side like a slowed film series of snapshots colourized in the Hipstamatic app.

He goes forward into the day; then we find out he hasn't left the morning mirror yet. There is a screen where he has a bathroom mirror video in colour, one running in black and white, and two bright red and yellow Hipstamatic iPhone photos. This is the modern Profile, indeed.

"Cut to: PROFILE." And there are a fast series of snapshots, some perhaps of the author/filmmaker, some of found stock footage, fast

"The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to." Friedrich Nietzsche

Cut to. Lots of close-ups of the eyes of the author/filmmaker/

The supermarket makes an appearance in black and white with a change in music, to what I'd call 'skating at the park on friday night' music. Musak.

Yes, we all think about saving .20cents off a brand of yoghurt we know we won't like. This is very real. Songs get stuck in our heads.

Snap back to, PROFILE.

Beach scene, and the ear. Listening. We began with the mouth. Then the mirror.

Tints change on found footage and photos. There is a visual aesthetic that is honed to get your attention. Nothing drags, or is slow. Colours jump out of the screen. We are kept awake throughout.

"I exist as a solitary creature that craves the company and troubles of others." R.W.Perkins.

Then we are with him in his house staring up at the blue sky, "birds, clouds and jet airplanes". He watches neighbours who are out, a jogger, a woman in sun glasses pushing a stroller. "I do not feel small, rather… feel like a giant." And the word giant appears in white lettering in a split screen that has a black and white bird on the left and an unpolarized shot of his neighbourhood on the right.

"Perspective is important here. When compared to a virtual nothing I think you'll find I have finger, nose, toes and eyes, and …I am quite prodigious."

PROFILE

"I am a voyeur. From the comfort of my couch, my dogs at my feet, I can see the neighbours pace in front of their window" and we get terrific split screen of the voyeur in black and white watching as if from behind curtains a jogger… again split screens with different times of the events the author is relating… "She sees me; she is glaring back at me with the suggestive gaze, she is saying, 'her day is going about as well as can be expected… and she is thrilled she looks so good in her new sun glasses." they are in their homes and the jet airplane overhead is full of self-important… but I can't help but wonder-

can they see me?"

PROFILE

"I am awake. I can think, and I exist. And I can see that today I am prodigious. The sky and all that surrounds it will come and go, as I see fit."

PROFILE

PROFILE is a keeper - a defining film poem on our era. This videopoem may spawn a host of videos and films exploring the modern social media identity, in this snappy beat of a style, but R.W.Perkins did it first.