WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:04.200 align:middle line:90% I had a question back here. 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:07.680 align:middle line:90% And I have the microphone. 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:10.740 align:middle line:90% This is for Christine. 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:12.690 align:middle line:84% Some people were talking in the intermission 00:00:12.690 --> 00:00:15.780 align:middle line:84% about that repetition, when that repetition of that line 00:00:15.780 --> 00:00:18.060 align:middle line:90% gets really heavy duty. 00:00:18.060 --> 00:00:20.200 align:middle line:84% They both put their hands over their hearts 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:24.150 align:middle line:84% and were like, yeah, I could hardly bear it. 00:00:24.150 --> 00:00:27.060 align:middle line:84% And it made me wonder about the process for you, 00:00:27.060 --> 00:00:31.260 align:middle line:84% and how it felt when you decided to start repeating that. 00:00:31.260 --> 00:00:34.480 align:middle line:84% You meant the rain, the walking around? 00:00:34.480 --> 00:00:34.980 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:00:34.980 --> 00:00:35.730 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:35.730 --> 00:00:38.460 align:middle line:84% Yeah, "what became the rain," that particular line that 00:00:38.460 --> 00:00:40.740 align:middle line:84% was repeated again and again and again, yeah. 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:47.820 align:middle line:84% Well, that's taken directly from the 9-1-1 call. 00:00:47.820 --> 00:00:51.000 align:middle line:84% So I thought that was just a great moment of-- 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:56.060 align:middle line:90% 00:00:56.060 --> 00:00:58.730 align:middle line:84% a very telling moment, in terms of this kind 00:00:58.730 --> 00:01:02.540 align:middle line:90% of inconsequential behavior. 00:01:02.540 --> 00:01:04.470 align:middle line:84% So what he's reporting, of course, 00:01:04.470 --> 00:01:09.240 align:middle line:84% is that there's somebody not doing anything. 00:01:09.240 --> 00:01:14.030 align:middle line:84% And so, I wanted that to just kind of accumulate 00:01:14.030 --> 00:01:19.730 align:middle line:84% as the piece goes on, and then contextualize it at the end, 00:01:19.730 --> 00:01:24.850 align:middle line:84% I think, to give the whole thing more of a 00:01:24.850 --> 00:01:30.250 align:middle line:84% through line, in addition to the discussion of sound 00:01:30.250 --> 00:01:36.340 align:middle line:84% and thinking about sound as a kind of utopian liberatory 00:01:36.340 --> 00:01:40.720 align:middle line:84% dimension that connects the body, which is redolent 00:01:40.720 --> 00:01:44.890 align:middle line:90% of the universe, with language. 00:01:44.890 --> 00:01:53.680 align:middle line:84% And so, for me, that just really sunk the whole mood 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:54.790 align:middle line:90% of the piece, I guess. 00:01:54.790 --> 00:02:00.530 align:middle line:90% 00:02:00.530 --> 00:02:01.480 align:middle line:90% Julie had a question. 00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:02.938 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure if this is a question, 00:02:02.938 --> 00:02:06.420 align:middle line:84% but what you made me think about was that poetry 00:02:06.420 --> 00:02:09.432 align:middle line:90% is very-- it's filmic. 00:02:09.432 --> 00:02:11.230 align:middle line:90% You create your own images. 00:02:11.230 --> 00:02:14.520 align:middle line:90% 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:21.270 align:middle line:84% Poetry is a filmic medium in the way it creates insight. 00:02:21.270 --> 00:02:24.420 align:middle line:84% And the reverberation of the relationship 00:02:24.420 --> 00:02:30.180 align:middle line:84% between the words and the sound make you imagine or see. 00:02:30.180 --> 00:02:34.500 align:middle line:84% So, I don't know, the way film and poetry come 00:02:34.500 --> 00:02:37.890 align:middle line:84% together is full of risk, in a way, 00:02:37.890 --> 00:02:41.170 align:middle line:90% in case one drowns the other. 00:02:41.170 --> 00:02:44.470 align:middle line:90% So how do any of you-- 00:02:44.470 --> 00:02:50.490 align:middle line:84% or even not necessarily a film but a recorded medium-- 00:02:50.490 --> 00:02:51.840 align:middle line:90% ride that rail? 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:56.313 align:middle line:90% 00:02:56.313 --> 00:02:58.301 align:middle line:90% Know when to pull. 00:02:58.301 --> 00:03:01.620 align:middle line:84% Know when to pull back, have your space. 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:04.820 align:middle line:84% Well, one of the things that's interesting to me 00:03:04.820 --> 00:03:08.360 align:middle line:84% about using film with talking about race 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:13.580 align:middle line:84% is that the problem with racial issues 00:03:13.580 --> 00:03:15.980 align:middle line:84% has to do with what is seen, right? 00:03:15.980 --> 00:03:18.330 align:middle line:90% So it is all about the body. 00:03:18.330 --> 00:03:20.420 align:middle line:84% It's all about whiteness, Blackness, 00:03:20.420 --> 00:03:23.630 align:middle line:84% how one is perceived, how one looks, 00:03:23.630 --> 00:03:27.170 align:middle line:84% how one sees what one is seeing, all of that stuff, right? 00:03:27.170 --> 00:03:34.740 align:middle line:84% So that subject, to me, seemed intimately tied to film. 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:38.940 align:middle line:84% And we saw that moment with the Rodney King video. 00:03:38.940 --> 00:03:43.410 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think the Rodney King video, 00:03:43.410 --> 00:03:46.680 align:middle line:84% it's the moment that threw it up. 00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:49.350 align:middle line:84% We also saw that moment with those lynching-- you know, 00:03:49.350 --> 00:03:51.660 align:middle line:84% those lynching photographs where you 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:57.870 align:middle line:84% see the sort of white spectators running on the bottom and then 00:03:57.870 --> 00:04:00.810 align:middle line:90% the two lynching bodies. 00:04:00.810 --> 00:04:04.470 align:middle line:84% That especially famous one where the two lynching bodies 00:04:04.470 --> 00:04:09.462 align:middle line:84% are there, and then you have the sort of-- 00:04:09.462 --> 00:04:12.750 align:middle line:84% going right across the bottom of the photograph, all 00:04:12.750 --> 00:04:17.010 align:middle line:84% of the white faces of invested, not invested, 00:04:17.010 --> 00:04:20.740 align:middle line:84% interested, not interested, amused, not amused, whatever. 00:04:20.740 --> 00:04:24.780 align:middle line:84% And so, I feel like that the idea of the image and the way 00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:32.600 align:middle line:84% in which the image is tied to this kind of knot 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:36.860 align:middle line:84% at the soul of American culture that tomorrow 00:04:36.860 --> 00:04:41.582 align:middle line:84% and the next day still means that one in three Black men 00:04:41.582 --> 00:04:43.415 align:middle line:84% are going to be put in prison for no reason. 00:04:43.415 --> 00:04:47.960 align:middle line:90% 00:04:47.960 --> 00:04:52.050 align:middle line:84% It's deeper than the image, and yet it is the image. 00:04:52.050 --> 00:04:58.370 align:middle line:84% And so, the film seemed to be the place 00:04:58.370 --> 00:05:02.390 align:middle line:90% that I could work on that. 00:05:02.390 --> 00:05:04.090 align:middle line:90% The text is another issue. 00:05:04.090 --> 00:05:11.180 align:middle line:84% But for me, it was important to begin to look at what is seen 00:05:11.180 --> 00:05:16.710 align:middle line:84% and to talk about perception through film. 00:05:16.710 --> 00:05:20.040 align:middle line:84% I think one of the things I noticed about Claudia's films, 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:24.300 align:middle line:84% these two pairings especially, is that she really 00:05:24.300 --> 00:05:26.400 align:middle line:90% plays with reflective surfaces. 00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:32.800 align:middle line:84% And so, both pieces rely on a sense of reflection. 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:36.990 align:middle line:84% They're calling you into a space of reflection 00:05:36.990 --> 00:05:40.500 align:middle line:84% via the windows and the way that images get 00:05:40.500 --> 00:05:42.620 align:middle line:90% projected onto those windows. 00:05:42.620 --> 00:05:44.970 align:middle line:84% So I think that is something that's 00:05:44.970 --> 00:05:48.270 align:middle line:84% very particular that you're doing, in those two pieces 00:05:48.270 --> 00:05:50.640 align:middle line:90% especially. 00:05:50.640 --> 00:05:53.340 align:middle line:90% I want to say something also. 00:05:53.340 --> 00:05:55.380 align:middle line:90% I think it was Rosa Alcalá. 00:05:55.380 --> 00:05:58.020 align:middle line:84% Was it in one of your essays or was it 00:05:58.020 --> 00:06:01.860 align:middle line:84% in one of our conversations that you observed something 00:06:01.860 --> 00:06:07.170 align:middle line:84% along the lines of what Julie just said about the poems 00:06:07.170 --> 00:06:08.940 align:middle line:90% being so cinematic? 00:06:08.940 --> 00:06:11.310 align:middle line:84% Do you remember, Rosa, that there 00:06:11.310 --> 00:06:14.220 align:middle line:84% was a sort of framing of the image that 00:06:14.220 --> 00:06:16.560 align:middle line:90% was influenced by films? 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:18.930 align:middle line:84% Do you remember that conversation? 00:06:18.930 --> 00:06:22.320 align:middle line:84% I remember it vividly because it caused me an impression 00:06:22.320 --> 00:06:24.420 align:middle line:90% that you had noticed that. 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:26.940 align:middle line:84% And I want to relate that to the fact 00:06:26.940 --> 00:06:30.900 align:middle line:84% that we're hearing the off-the-page meditation. 00:06:30.900 --> 00:06:34.020 align:middle line:84% Because when you first invited me 00:06:34.020 --> 00:06:38.790 align:middle line:84% to an off-the-page, the first immediate reaction that I had, 00:06:38.790 --> 00:06:40.350 align:middle line:90% I thought it was very funny. 00:06:40.350 --> 00:06:44.730 align:middle line:84% Because, in truth, poetry has always been off the page, 00:06:44.730 --> 00:06:46.150 align:middle line:90% for millions of years. 00:06:46.150 --> 00:06:49.870 align:middle line:84% How many billions of years people have been making poetry? 00:06:49.870 --> 00:06:57.060 align:middle line:84% So poetry is visiting the page, is visiting very briefly, 00:06:57.060 --> 00:06:58.474 align:middle line:90% you know. 00:06:58.474 --> 00:07:01.953 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:07:01.953 --> 00:07:02.947 align:middle line:90% 00:07:02.947 --> 00:07:07.590 align:middle line:84% And so, I think it's the same with the cinema. 00:07:07.590 --> 00:07:10.920 align:middle line:84% The minute cinema appeared in human consciousness, 00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:14.580 align:middle line:84% it immediately penetrated more our way 00:07:14.580 --> 00:07:17.560 align:middle line:84% of framing, which relates to what you're saying. 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:20.730 align:middle line:84% So that's why it becomes a type of tool. 00:07:20.730 --> 00:07:25.650 align:middle line:84% The poem and the film are, like, born to come together 00:07:25.650 --> 00:07:27.180 align:middle line:90% and to fight. 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:31.590 align:middle line:84% And I think it's a really beautiful, fantastic tension 00:07:31.590 --> 00:07:36.570 align:middle line:84% of possible and impossible in that framing 00:07:36.570 --> 00:07:39.450 align:middle line:84% because, as you were pointing out, for example, 00:07:39.450 --> 00:07:45.690 align:middle line:84% I love the films that you showed because, precisely, they 00:07:45.690 --> 00:07:49.530 align:middle line:90% have a sort of depth to them. 00:07:49.530 --> 00:07:51.480 align:middle line:90% Like, they're not images. 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:54.450 align:middle line:84% They're going into transparencies 00:07:54.450 --> 00:07:57.300 align:middle line:84% as ancient oil painting used to do 00:07:57.300 --> 00:07:59.940 align:middle line:84% or as the rock paintings used to do. 00:07:59.940 --> 00:08:01.950 align:middle line:84% If you look at the rock paintings that 00:08:01.950 --> 00:08:05.340 align:middle line:84% are 20,000 years old, 40,000 years old, 00:08:05.340 --> 00:08:07.770 align:middle line:84% it's really a depth that's completely 00:08:07.770 --> 00:08:10.320 align:middle line:84% unrelated to the Western perspective. 00:08:10.320 --> 00:08:15.900 align:middle line:84% It's a sort of depth of dimensionless dimensionality. 00:08:15.900 --> 00:08:18.900 align:middle line:84% And that is really something that film 00:08:18.900 --> 00:08:21.700 align:middle line:84% and the connectivity of sound, for example, 00:08:21.700 --> 00:08:24.120 align:middle line:84% when you ask us to close our eyes, 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:27.930 align:middle line:84% we immediately go into the dimensionless of space 00:08:27.930 --> 00:08:30.570 align:middle line:90% because sound is like that. 00:08:30.570 --> 00:08:35.159 align:middle line:84% For example, in the Indigenous cultures of the Americas, 00:08:35.159 --> 00:08:36.480 align:middle line:90% the images-- 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:39.120 align:middle line:84% visual images-- are never to be trusted 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:44.159 align:middle line:84% because they're considered to always be hallucinogenic. 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:49.380 align:middle line:84% Nevertheless, sound is always trusted because sound tells you 00:08:49.380 --> 00:08:50.760 align:middle line:90% how to survive. 00:08:50.760 --> 00:08:54.570 align:middle line:84% You see, if somebody is coming at you, you will hear it, 00:08:54.570 --> 00:08:57.150 align:middle line:90% not see it. 00:08:57.150 --> 00:09:01.050 align:middle line:84% And I think it also hits the subconscious faster, 00:09:01.050 --> 00:09:03.740 align:middle line:90% sound does, than images.