Recording narratives for "L'éclipse de l'âme" with Douglas Park.
L'éclipse de l'âme (2009-2012) is een beeldgedicht dat bestaat uit vijf hoofdstukken. Binnen het door de kunstenaar afgebakende kader van een filmvertoning wordt de kijker geconfronteerd met het ontstaan van een nieuw vocabularium. De haast onzichtbare morfologie van de wereld rondom wordt bekeken, ontleed en herwerkt tot een emotieve beeldarchitectuur.
L'éclipse de l'âme gaat in première op vrijdag 9 november 2012 in Be-Part,
Platform voor actuele kunst. Naast de voorstelling zijn er ook enkele gerelateerde werken te bekijken.
Douglas Park writes about L'éclipse de l'âme
Images copyright: Jan Mast
"L'éclipse de l'objet, L'éclipse du sujet, L'éclipse de l'âme"
a film by Jan Mast
2009-2012
(Collaboration: chapter 3 of L'éclipse de l'âme with Nico Dockx,
Pauwel De Buck collaborated on chapter 4, Douglas Park on chapter 5)
- 55min | Blu-ray | Color
이 영화는 5개의 장으로 구성된 작가로서의 삶, 그리고 개인적인 삶에 대한 종합적인 보고서이다.
시각과 언어 등의 복합적인 시퀀스들로 이루어진 영상은 작가 얀 마스트의 삶, 생각, 경험 혹은 발전에
대해 스스로 일종의 평가를 이뤄낸다.
더글러스 파크는 얀 마스트와 텍스트 작업을 공동으로 하고, 나레이션을 담당했다.
## November 2012. L'éclipse de l'âme (I-V). Jan Mast
## L'éclipse de l'âme I : Please, Dance on the Sea at Night
Hi.
Francis F.
Jan Mast.
It's been lightyears.
Many times the sun was hiding.
Did you see vast white landscapes?
Endless horizons?
I prefer mountains.
Were you there too?
Yes, I was. I don't know.
I learned to forget.
What do you fear? Are you suffering?
No. Yes. Both.
They look for holes in my story.
Dark places that feel cold.
Things I managed to forget.
Somehow.
You see...
Are you hiding ?
Like a restless animal.
Tracking you down.
Do you want to go back in space?
The great escape?
Start over.
Safe havens protect you from life.
Chance.
We meet here by accident.
We are drinking together by chance.
I decided to start talking to you.
You chose to listen.
Don’t try to get there sooner.
I have been there.
And I came back.
Your today is a second of my past.
No, I move before your eyes.
Everytime you blink, I visit then and now.
I move forward and back again.
You'll never catch me.
I am your eclipse.
I jump into the sun.
L’éclipse de l’âme.
## L'éclipse de l'âme II : Looking for the Juggling Man
(extracts of Dante Alighiero / images only / extracts of
William Burroughs, What keep mankind alive?)
## L'éclipse de l'âme III : L'éclipse de l'objet, l'éclipse
du sujet
j'aime les montagnes
and the sea at night
what's that ?
it tastes like bacon
howling
dust on my shoes
## L'éclipse de l'âme IV : The Strong Poet's Anxiety of
Influence
(images only)
## L'éclipse de l'âme V : Exit Interzone
Somebody dies, the camera, that is.
The camera gets buried.
Do I die?
I almost did.
Or at least it felt like that.
I somehow link it to my possible
greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgrandmother, buried alive, because she wouldn't
convert to another belief.
She was a Hugenot.
I burst out in tears, desperate for air, breathing
erratically, as if my body suddenly engaged with a strange energy rush.
I felt her pain, somehow, anyway, I was her, for a short
while.
L’éclipse I :
Internal language / Hineinsystematik / the inner world / the
me.
L’éclipse II :
Internal language + studying another language (Philip Van
Isacker) / the inner world contrasted / the me and somebody else as different
entities.
L’éclipse III :
Internal language + multiple languages interfering / the
inner world manipulated / the me and many more (Nico Dockx, Ann Veronica
Janssens, Krist Torfs).
L’éclipse IV :
Internal language + external language (Pauwel De Buck) = new
language / the inner world expanding / the me and somebody else converging.
L’éclipse V :
Internal language becomes external language / the inner
world moves into the outer world / the me becomes the you / a new story begins
(Douglas Park).
The you becomes the me again.
Before the images leave me.
I see a dark space.
A room?
Smooth walls, silken, could be a tomb, or even the universe.
The silk moves.
Somebody has died.
A pale woman stands above the grave, dark clothes, big eyes,
red red lips.
She starts to sing Dante.
The dead stay dead, but they also stay alive.
Zoom in on the singing lady.
The camera moves away, towards the ceiling, into the pale
blue lamp, overlit sunlight.
For the singing woman, an opera singer.
Her voice carries us.
A Polish song.
For the dead woman, a frail beauty, open eyes.
Clear eyes take my breath away.
White face, colourless lips, light hair, fine hands,
dangerously innocent, but strong inside. She chooses to die for her beliefs.
Marie-Antoinette.
Draping.
Tableaux vivants.
Staging.
Marie-Antoinette is dancing around, casual, free as a bird.
Who knows what awaits here?
Where has she been?
Where will she go?
It looks so dated. Until she swirls and turns and slams
against the fire exit. The doors open. Light blinds us.
Neon lights.
Like she just strolled out of a disco or something, a
nightclub undefined.
Her face looks older in this light, more aged.
She moves through the streets.
Welcome back, Alice.
A softly faded colour in her attitude.
Maybe dwelling in all her could-have-beens and ifs.
Cars pass under the bridge.
Could be summer.
The sky is clear.
It could be morning.
The lights are still on.
Waterfalls, I want them, waterfalls.
Strange nature.
Bliss.
## MORE
L’ÉCLIPSE DE L’ÂME I
( Please, Dance On The Sea At Night )
text, camera, sounds, editing by Jan Mast
voice performance by Douglas Park
includes excerpts of :
Collapsing Stories / D is Doneby Jan Mast & Madensuyu,
2008
Flesh to White to Black to Fleshby Bruce Nauman, 1968
Good Boy, Bad Boyby Bruce
Nauman, 1985
L’ÉCLIPSE DE L’ÂME II
( Looking For The Juggling Man )
camera, sounds, editing by Jan Mast
sounds by Philip Van Isacker
includes excerpts of : Within The Movement Of Time / The
Juggling Man by Philip Van Isacker, 2009
Aguaespejo Granadinoby José Val del Omar, 1953-1955
What Keeps Mankind Alive by William S. Burroughs, 1994
L’ÉCLIPSE DE L’ÂME III
( L’éclipse de l’objet, l’éclipse du sujet )
text, camera, sounds, editing by Jan Mast
text by Nico Dockx
editing in collaboration with Nico Dockx, Ann Veronica
Janssens, Krist Torfs
includes excerpts of : L'éclipse de l'objet, l'éclipse du
sujet, 2009 by Nico Dockx, Ann Veronica Janssens, Krist Torfs
L’ÉCLIPSE DE L’ÂME IV
( The Strong Poet’s Anxiety Of Influence )
camera, editing by Jan Mast
soundscape by Pauwel De Buck
includes excerpts of :
Le corbeau et le renard by Marcel Broodthaers, 1967
what are we doing here! by Rirkrit Tiravanija & Arto
Lindsay, 2008
L’ÉCLIPSE DE L’ÂME V
( Exit Interzone )
text, camera, editing by Jan Mast
voice performance, text
revisal by Douglas Park
includes excerpts of : Freak Orlando by Ulrike Ottinger,
1981
OF NOTE
Brian Butler & the Hollywood Hills / Miguel &
Pauline de Potter & the misty woods of Bredau / Lieve Laporte & her
lightning feedback / Thomas Verbeke & his grandmother's engraved rifle /
Nathalie Janssens de Bisthoven / Pauwel De Buck / Barbara De Schouwer / Nico
Dockx / Helena Laporte / Madensuyu / Douglas Park / Patrick Ronse / Alexander
Saverys / Clara Sobrino Heyvaert / Nico Strobbe / Rirkrit Tiravanija / Patrick
Ronse / Philip Van Isacker / Peter Verkest / Ann Veronica Janssens &
anybody I might forget / anybody I might have filmed / you
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
BEPART, platform for contemporary art, Waregem
www.bepartlive.org
LIGHTMACHINE agency
www.lightmachine.info
©2012 Jan Mast
L'ÉCLIPSE DE L'ÂME (2009-2012)
A TEXT BY DOUGLAS PARKAs well as being a work in its own right, L'éclipse de l'âme is a progress-report summary of findings and results; an appraisal by Jan Mast of his experience, concerns and development, as an artist and in his personal life. Both worlds very much interconnect. Complex visual and lingual sequences reference Jan Mast’s own projects, his solo work and also collaborations with others, as well as chosen examples of art and culture, Jan Mast’s researches, reading, traveling, leisure activities and especially staged scenes etc. What are otherwise private, personal and innermost explorations, become shared, open, intimate and direct — but can stay unfathomable — whilst mystery and enigma reinforces beauty and power.
Although seemingly a predominantly moving image installation, L'éclipse de l'âme also extends into a bookwork and ephemera with pœtry picture postcards. All of equal worth, no hierarchy or status. Single facets of each of these seem to be many potential works or even careers in themselves.
Not forgetting original art objects, ‘Aigle’ (eagle — autographic work on paper) and the cibachrome photographs, ‘Your Eclipse’, ‘Please, dance’ and ‘Le rêve de Saint-Julien’.
L'éclipse de l'âme is divisible into 5 chapters, each comprising 5 stages: 1.) Please, dance on the sea at night (selected extracts from other works by Jan Mast; Jan Mast & Madensuyu’s ‘Collapsing Stories / D Is Done’ audiovisuals; Bruce Nauman’s ‘Flesh to White to Black to Flesh’ and ‘Good Boy, Bad Boy’ videoworks; otherwise, mainly consisting of Jan Mast’s vocabulary unedited, in pure and raw form, with little or no grammatical link, more of an accumulation of archival treasure, comme Gerhard Richter’s ‘Atlas’ of working material and Hans Peter Feldmann’s collected studies of imagery; broadcast on car radio of U.S “electric church” evangelist preaching about good and evil; assorted textual entries); 2.) Looking for the Juggling Man (contrasting with Philip van Isacker’s installation ‘Within The Movement of Time / Looking for the Juggling Man’— which plays traditional art and new media representations of human body and action off against each other; José Val del Omar’s ‘Aguæspejo Granadino’; William S. Burroughs’ ‘What Keeps Mankind Alive?’ — recited to Brecht and Weill’s ‘Threepenny Opera’; Pedro Diniz Reis’ ‘Alphabet’; as studying another language); 3.) L'éclipse de l’objet, l'éclipse du sujet (The eclipse of the object, the eclipse of the subject — Nico Dockx, Ann Veronica Janssens and Krist Torfs’ miniature light installation — alongside Jan Mast’s expanded cinema and cocktail party event at the SMAK Art Museum, Ghent; colour filtered imagery; visual language harmonization attempt); 4.) The Strong Pœt’s Anxiety Of Influence (addressing postmodern philosopher, Richard Rorty’s critical essay of same name, about cultural production problems and potential solutions and actual advantages to them; Pauwel De Buck’s soundscape; rural hunting villagers in dialogue with urbanism — the hunter and the hunted in ordinary life; Marcel Broodthærs’ ‘Le Corbeau et le Renard’ as example of disguise, theatre, deceit and entrapment; Rirkrit Tiravanija and Arto Lindsay’s ‘What Are We Doing Here!’ performance’; for a change, some extent of storytelling and climax); 5.) Exit Interzone (women drinking tea and reading James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ and Frederico Garcia-Lorca’s ‘Collected Works’, whilst dreaming their dreams away; introverted imagery of Jan Mast himself, walking through desert terrain, a la Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘Theorema’ — in search of God and liberation from socially imposed boundaries; Alice in Wonderland awakening near the nightclub undefined; input from and image of Douglas Park recounting the story of L'éclipse de l'âme — a riposte to the U.S “electric church” evangelist and William S. Burroughs; nocturnal urban traffic; blurred rainy city vistas, après Gerhard Richter paintings; Willem Defœ dressed up as a cat in Marina Abramovic’s ‘The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic’ — portrait of Francis F, Jan Mast’s alter ego; dancing bunny girls from Ulrike Ottinger’s ‘Freak Orlando’ movie — latterday fauns; Jan Mast’s ‘Crypticcrystalcloud’ collaboration with Nico Dockx and Kris Delacourt — emotions triggered via multilayered iconography; then eventually, bread-eating ravens).
Starting with a traditional “leader” countdown introduction, L'éclipse de l'âme begins with an ansafone message left by Jan Mast’s alter ego Francis F, especially for Jan Mast.
Thereafter, many scenarios in L'éclipse de l'âme are split up into incomplete fragments, which aren’t presented in accepted order of appearance, but spread, scattered and surfacing within and between different chapters and stages. In addition to material described, as well as urban and rural, daylight and nocturnal, outside and indoor places, routes and journeys, other leitmotif footage and stories include: deer hunting in Wallonia (referencing Gustave Flaubert’s ‘The Legend of Saint-Julien the Hospitaller’, from Gustave Flaubert’s ‘Trois Contes’); Jan Mast himself enacting otherwise ordinary poses and behaviour, with some element of contrivance, artifice and theatre; a female singer live on stage with a band — looking as though she’s about to vomit — only somehow or other desperately trying not to — although unlikely that’s what was happening.
Appropriately, one of the chosen examples of art and culture is a recording of William S. Burroughs. Very in keeping, given that there’s more than just an element of cutup, collage, remixing, Nouvelle Vague cinema and Anti-Novel literature to L'éclipse de l'âme.
Throughout L'éclipse de l'âme, all material is embodied as functional and informative, yet the still and moving visual imagery is often dreamlike, magic realist and æsthetic, whilst the often diaristic and sometimes script-like spoken word voiceover soundtrack and subtitled commentary threatens to interrupt and even distract. The information overload factor is indeed challenging and difficult, but never impossible or preventative.
Finally, as for the images that Jan Mast is attracted to (and perhaps targets him — as a mutual relationship and rapport) and his unique portrayal of them, regardless of whether the colour and shades are deep and rich, bright and lurid or even more somber and drab, always ends up so irresistibly sensuous and seductive as to become edible.
©, Copyright, Douglas Parktext by DOUGLAS PARK online - L'ÉCLIPSE DE L'ÂME (2009-2012) on the work of Jan Mast
http://www.bepartlive.org/s-181---L%27éclipse-de-l%27âme-%282009-2012%29
