wesenskunde I

I became frustrated trying too hard to write something that doesn't want to be. What is the story to go along with these images? There are several beginnings and half-beginnings typed out over three different open documents. Is it ironic? Is it sweet? Does it hold any truth or is it an abstraction from reality that seeks to fill the gaps?

“I would like to read his book about synchronicity," she wondered.

""You already understand it," I thought to myself

I hate writing. I like pictures. I hate speaking. I like music. Few words are rarely inspiring, and even fewer people who speak. These statements appear more harsh than is meant, but that's why I try to write more. I don't know how to communicate very well and have a tendency to put people off in writing. My nature is either too penetrant, harsh, and direct, or not very well-organised. This is probably why there are so few people in my inner-circle of friends. Who wants to hang out with someone who doesn't knows what to say or how to say it? I tried earlier to write in blogs and tried simpler projects like movie reviews but in the end it was all embarassing drivel.

She put the cup up tea up to her mouth and took a drink. Her profile was beautiful, a little wild, a little soft, earthy.

Yet, with a photo shoot things are different. Behind the camera I am confident and feel articulate. You are my model, my actor, the physical extension of the fantasy playing out in my mind. Your form is the collection of the meanings of my words. The camera is the filter in which ideas somehow find a meaningful conversation. We do not pose or pretend to be somewhere but are capturing a 4-dimensional moment together. It's intimate and honest, how it should be.

HN is a special friend. We can speak about spiritual things; not so much about myths and Gods but about metaphysical patterns and our observations of them. These conversations are stimulating. I live to analyse and re-analyse. The words in themselves are pointless but codes we're exchanging are invaluable. Photography is a code of settings. Music is a code of sounds. Language is a code of perceptions, affirmations, and contradictions. There are two overused and abused words I hate the most: “paradigm” and “derivative”. People who use them regularly tend to make my stomach churn as if smelling the pheromones of an incompatible mate. I've never once heard them come from HN's lips when speaking over spirituality or art; she is a good egg.

"So maybe I just sing you a song..."

HN has on a few occasions brought me english-language reading material. The last a collection of texts by John Cage, Richard Wagner, Walter Benjamin and several others: PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIA SOUNDS. It will certainly be an interesting read! I like people who can enjoy John Cage. I would have loved to have photographed him. It is unfortunate that we never had the opportunity to meet. Did he ever meet William Burroughs and if he did what was their chemistry like in the same room together? Not as 70 year old men but as mid-thirties queens? Would there have been fireworks? I wonder if Peter Greenaway did John Cage. Somehow I imagine John as a fruity whore; very sweet and funny. Perhaps one day I will make a film about it- a textual and visual orgy of Cage, Burroughs, Greenaway and Genet all at once.

We speak often about the natural order of things. There's been so much talk of the end of the world lately that it's nice to have a coherent conversation with someone who doesn't easily give up on living. That's where we are similar, both being natural survivors. Picture yourself, the earth cracks open wide and the sky is falling down, where will you be during the apocalypse? What will you do afterwards? I once joked with maurus that I am the angel of Death and he replied, "You don't have the humour!" That's a person who knows Death! The doom and gloom often associated with world apocalypse does seem to be missing something.

"I want you to be like a tarot card"

"Which one?" She asked

"One that hasn't been made yet," I smiled and began arranging the pillows

I was to create a story for these images about a girl whose family immigrated to the U.S. when she was a baby. She ran away at age 15 to San Francisco and fell in love with a young circus performer who walked tightrope and did fire dancing. After a year together they packed up a car with friends and drove cross-country to New York city where she was discovered by a French student studying film. Her boyfriend became very jealous and went back to California without her. She then began modelling for local fashion designers and eventually had a mad love affair with the Frenchman. He took her to Lyons to meet his parents but it ended very badly and they broke up. She then found herself modelling for someone else in Paris just before being discovered by an Italian filmmaker who would then make her an art-house film icon. Her breakout role was of a young Asian girl caught in a human trafficking ring who kills her transporter and becomes queen of Western European Burlesque. It was a film that confronted subdued racism, sexism, and xenophobia in modern Western Europe. After that she had many more roles in many films spanning 16 years, made a few chanteuse CDs, and wrote a memoirs. This series of photos was to be a part of a magazine interview about her book.

I started the story from a few different angles but couldn't develop it enough to get anywhere. It's frustrating trying to force something that does not want to be. I became discouraged and find myself here without a story but some rambling words mixed in with images. Is it a reflection of me? Of my model? Of our time together that day? Of a story that does not exist? I'm faced with the same problem in nearly all my attempts at narrative work, everything lacks substance. It's the laziest form of perfectionism. So now I distract myself with Jung. “My life is the story of the self-realisation of the unconscious” he wrote in his autobiography. The first time hearing the word “synchronicity” I immediately envisioned it as a demi-constant mathematical symbol used as a placeholder for determining the topography of the 8^th dimension. This is why I like Jung, he overstates the obvious in nice visionary style.

HN goes back to the U.S. soon and we won't see her again until next year. Maybe by then I will have a story for her, or a roll in a film. Or maybe it's just her, me, and a camera.

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