Moving Camera

The camera constitutes another tool within my artistic practices: a tool for documenting and reflecting on my research process, a medium to distill the principles of instant composition practices, a condition into which I compose instantly as a dancer, operator or editor. Below are some examples of the videos that I have made. They are divided into two categories:

1.The process of video-making through choreographic tools.

2. The application of instant composition to different stages of the process of video-making.

Each video is accompanied with a short reflection where I focus on the process, the condition, and the concept through which they were made.

A brief reflection on my process

by taking “not knowing” not as condition

to be overcome, surpassed, repressed, or feel anxious about

– but as rigorous method

 to be pursued to its ultimate consequences’

Andre Lepecki

After my camera experimentations, I realized that the state of not-knowing could become a powerful, motivating, and dynamic force when a structure and some parameters have been predefined. When I was experimenting with the camera, I had already a structure before shooting, editing or dancing. Sometimes it was more open, others more set. However, the way that I dealt with this was dynamic, letting surrounding stimulus affect my process at the time of shooting.

The process of experimenting with the camera brought out the quality of playfulness and curiosity. The fact that I come from the dance field, and screendance is not my subject area allowed me to focus on the process and to use each ‘accident’ as another material to incorporate without having any expectations for the outcome. The combination of my studio practices with tools such as camera and objects, with which I’m not particularly familiar, can bring to the surface the quality of playfulness and the aproach of not-knowing as ‘a rigorous method to be pursued to its ultimate cosequences’ (Lepecki, 2010)

Below, there are some more examples of video dance that I have done as part of my research, divided in the already referred categories.

The process of video-making through choreographic tools

Hunch

Camera/performance/Editing: Maria Pisiou

I tried to create scores for the movement, the camera, and the editing ; to create a structure that I would follow during the process of shooting. It failed. The process itself created its own path, went into another direction. I followed it and this is the outcome. In the end, I started searching for a balance between following the already defined structure and, at the same time, letting stimulus and instant desires affect my process; Organising the space, the time and the movement, while at the same time making room for not knowing and for interacting with possible instant stimulus, both as performer and editor.

Antarctica

Concept, Camera, Edit: Maria Pisiou Performer: Polina Chyrsafi

This video was made as a response to a poetic score, approaching it through a sensorial way. Coming from the field of dance, I used my tools as a dancer and dance maker during the whole process. The reading of the score, the process of brainstorming with some ideas, and the definition of the condition ( the light, the space, the distance between the camera and the performer) constituted the preparation for the video. During the shooting, the condition that my collaborator and I had defined constituted the base, the structure into which I started taking videos. At the last part of the process, the editing, I started to compose my materials and let themeself speak and create a narrative. What is important is the decision of creating a narrative at the moment of editing. Julyen Hamilton argues that:

‘We must learn to see, to grope, not exactly to analyze but look beyond to see how things live together. Look! There is a woman standing in a doorway [...]. Try not to draw conclusions. Look exactly where and how these things live together. And then dance with this technique. It can be very rich.’

The decision of not creating a specific narrative was an attempt of sustaining the state of curiosity and not-knowing during the whole process of video-making. Not arriving to conclusions and not trying to compose a specific end image were the qualities, which penetrated the whole process of video-making.

Application of instant composition to the different levels of the process of video-making

• Instant Composition in Editting

RoughCut

Camera, Performance, Edit: Maria Pisiou

‘A score for choreographing the process of editing’

Build up a dialogue with the used sound/music and let it become the partiture for editing
Create rhythmicality through cutting.

• Instant composition for both performer and operator.

One shot camera