Let the ragged edge between
the two be lightning
or falling water, and figure its use: the distance
away of a person poised in the air with wings
on.
—Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Empathy
“When using tape to
make a splice, the cut pieces of film are placed end
to end and the tape itself covers the gap: it is a
band-aid and a bridge. But as the splice ages a line
becomes visible; eventually the adhesive dries and
the connection dissolves. When making a cement splice,
there is more violence involved. The films are not
placed end to end but instead are crushed into one
another. Frames are lost, emulsions are scraped. But
the well-made splice is strong: in fact, it is permanent.
Unlike tape, there is no going back. And it leaves
a mark—a line—covering a third of one
of the frames. A splice marks difference and defines
duration. To suppress that mark is to pretend that
we will live forever. Instead, take your splicer and
knock the blade out of alignment. Forgo the B roll
in favor of a single strand of faith. Hold your breath
and count the hours since you were last together.
Blow softly on a wet face and watch the smile form.
Float your hand across the surface and find all the
words you need. Unfold the splicer and separate your
image from your dream; you will feel bound, as if
tied down until you are fully awake. Only then will
you know for sure: this may not be final but it is
definite. The landscape you see can change only when
you pass through it. Regard your new object: a union:
silent, tiny and bright. Paired texts as dueling histories.
A journey imagined and remembered. 57 mileage markers
produce an equal number of prospects.”—D.G.
And
we are on our way, shrugging off coincidence and making
up the story
From the story’s hitherto
The outcomes must be several and unknown They
must be exchanged like accuracies With you taking
your aim and I taking mine
_____
Two figures in a figure drawing present at different
times
Time now is the element of invisibility
In a tendered exchange
Between and blown boy and a planted girl
Love is a violence that compels thinking
—Lyn Hejinian, A Border Comedy
“On either side of a
Life find a Library before and an Auction after: consider
these figures as the sites for a collection created
for the purposes of division and dispersal. The journey
this time moves from the first light at dawn to the
last rays of a sunset, reflected and refracted. In
between find dry Fall turn toward the shadows of Spring
and the stillness of death sparked by the singularities
of a transcendental field. Find yourself resting uneasily
half way up the stairs: Something has left the body,
yet the body remains: what has left is on its way
Elsewhere but cannot help but look back: this look
animates the world and makes possible this
Theory of Flight in the form of a bibliography.
“Webster’s Third International Dictionary
says a bibliographer is “one that writes
about or is informed about books, their authorship,
format, publication and similar details.” Is
he or she supposed to compile a set of authoritative
texts that can withstand the charge of forgery, the
test of time, the timelessness of libraries? A bibliography
is “the history, identification, or analytical
and systematic description or classification of writings
or publications considered as material objects.”
Can we ever really discover the original text? What
is a pure text invented by an author? Is such a conception
possible? Only by going back to the pre-scriptive
level of thought process can ‘authorial intention’
finally be located, and then the material object has
become immaterial. Pierre Macherey’s description
of the discourse in a fiction applies to the discourse
in this bibliography: “sealed and interminably
completed or endlessly beginning again, diffuse and
dense, coiled about an absent center which it can
neither conceal nor reveal.”
– Susan Howe, The Nonconformist’s
Memorial
“From Leonardo da Vinci to Jules-Etienne Marey,
practitioners of a certain mode of transcendental
empiricism turned repeatedly to combinations of words
and images describing the flight of birds. In 1726
William Byrd returned to Westover in Virginia and
began construction of a garden soon to be called “the
finest in the country, filled with the charming colours
of the Humming Bird.” In a parallel pursuit,
he collected the largest library in the colonies to
serve as mirror for his mind and testament to his
knowledge. Evelyn Byrd was fond of sketching the birds
in the garden. Her interest was more than aesthetic
and scientific; she devised a very different use for
her father’s vast library.
“This chapter of an ongoing exploration
of the Byrd library finds its name and shape within
a single volume from that collection: Athanasius Kircher’s
17th century encyclopedia, The Great Art of Knowing.
Herein find tangled texts and crossed destinies, filled
with figures at once buried deep and tossed high by
History, lined with traces of a hidden romance. Love
finds purchase between tightly shelved volumes. In
the spaces between the letters. In the lines themselves.
An antinomian cinema seems possible. A gentle iconoclasm?
The image is always backwards in a mirror. The story
unfolds slowly.”—D.G.
“Now you
see it now you don’t. Knew that it had to and
knew that it should be free from the page and slide
‘till reborn. Knew that it had to and knew that
it could be peeled from the page in frame-at-a-time
mornings. Knew that it had to and knew that it would:
monk-like sequestered, scriptorium scribbling: light
from the window was light from above. Knew that I
had it but knew that I couldn’t stretch the
material in frames of my making. Looked for instructions
and found an Instructor: Moxon directed and Moxon
framed timely: found I should follow and follow I
tried. A constant restaging of appearance as disappearance.
The notion of a Baroque house in which we are in ascension
from a lower floor comprising “pleats of matter”
to an upper floor enclosing “folds of the soul,”
. . . we fall again we rise in turn . . . in the beginning
was the word in the end was the light . . . in between
both at the same time . . . translation constantly
in transformation . . . pushing upwards, disappearing
at the upper reaches . . . we all look with hope we
all hope to rise. Now you see it now you don’t.”—David
Gatten
All
night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of somber pages.
It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shriveled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.
No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, ‘Everything
Falls back to coldness,
Even the musky muscadines
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden.’
The somber pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.
— Wallace Stevens, “The Reader”
“A closely watched candle and an invitation
to the dance. William Byrd booms among his books while
Evelyn keeps to a quiet window. The volunteer fire
brigade sorts through the ashes and Isaac Goldberg
tells it like it is. Alive again. But still waiting
for the sunrise.”—D.G.
Total running time: 97m plus discussion
Program 1: STRAUB-HUILLET’S
A TRIP TO THE LOUVRE
Program
2: THE DAILY PLANET (Unearthed)
Program
3: DAVID GATTEN’S SECRET HISTORY OF THE DIVIDING
LINE: A TRUE ACCOUNT IN NINE PARTS
Program
4: THE TERRESTRIAL OBSERVATORY
Program
5: BLUE MOVIE with special guest VIVA
Program
6: ALLEN ROSS’S GRANDFATHER TRILOGY
Program 7: LARRY GOTTHEIM
Program 8: MANUAL OVERRIDE (“Slip
Inside this House”)
Program
9: SHADOWHUNGER
Program
10: HEINZ EMIGHOLZ
|
Sat
Oct 1: 2:15 PM |
|
