Meg Porteous, video work, 2019

 

Elements for discussion:

 

video work - A poetic pot-pourri(1) of images captured in and around the Artist’s residence; a fifth floor apartment Cnr Waterloo & Parliament. All shots were made on a Sony HDR-CX100 AVCHD(2).

 

Production:

 

Two halves: The first, expository: composed from various location shots taken within the Auckland CBD, self-portraiture, voyeuristic ‘Rear Window’ images shot from the two open sides of the Artist’s apartment.

 

The second, your favourite, characterised by darkness punctuated by spasmodic flashes of blue light. Interior car shots were made by the Writer, under the Artist’s instruction, from the back seat of a grey Mazda 6. The Artist’s eyes are lit by the flashes of a DSLR camera held by the videographer - also responsible for the clicking heard throughout. The bedding track is ambient (car stereo); Concert FM: Schubert’s Symphony Number 8 in b Minor, also known as his ‘Unfinished Symphony’ played at Royal Albert Hall by the West Eastern Divan Orchestra(3).

 

Viewing instructions:

 

Composed between July and September 2019: Unfinished Symphony rewards the perspicacious viewer. We suggest savouring four or five continuous loops before settling in for more serious study. Full enjoyment of the first half demands a generous meditation on each clip - the patient critic will be rewarded by the dilatory effect of a Well Timed Tap on the pause button - enhancing both narrative and aesthetic elements(4). There should be no pausing in the second half, however (except, perhaps, to see the ducks).

 

The Writer:

 

An independent observer; the Artist’s brother. All mistakes are the Writer’s own.

 

Commentary:

 

First half - Exposition

 

0:00 - Establishing shot: The SAP building, late afternoon - 23 July 2019(5)- Music: Refrain, string section - call and response.

 

0:01 - A scene at dusk - stormy weather: close-up: Purple floodlight dramatically cast up the side and terminating buttercup-like on the underside of a mirrored ring. Quick zoom: Two masts. A frightening image. Reminiscent of Picasso’s Blue Period(6).

 

0:06 - The Artist ascends an escalator(7),  unknown location and date - raises a few questions for the astute viewer: What is the narrative intention of the shot? Are we going some place? What happens when we die?

 

0:09 - Bedroom shots, mirror - Introducing our narrator; the Artist at home - The camera starts high and comes swiftly downward. The top of the mirror is our curtain raise. Costume choice; poor.

 

0:12 - Smash cut - early morning, exterior - a satisfying coincidence of musical and visual rhythm in this transition(8).

 

0:15 - Close-up, bedroom - the Artist’s aquiline nose - Note here the disjunct between the Artist’s eye (brown, almond shaped) and the camera (High-tech, SONY)(9).  As the eye of our autuer and our mediator are displaced on-screen we’d like the viewer to think about the split between the implied viewer and themselves. Performed, performer. Keep these two lenses in mind as we move into the next phase of our analysis.

 

0:18 - Window, exterior/interior, night - The performer here is a barrister sole in an adjacent tower block. He uses the pentagonal windows of his office as a mirrored stage. We believe he is practising his submissions.(10)

 

0:28 - Artist’s face - another close-up - is that a tear on her cheek?(11)   The juxtaposition between the Artist’s face (mediated by the mirror) and the performing barrister (mediated by panes of glass) might be a failed attempt at Brechtian Alienation(12).

 

0:44 - (Another) Escalator shot. In the Writer’s humble opinion; superfluous. As the shot concludes we hear the closing note of the symphony.

 

0:46 - Long-shot, night - Man in window. A musical pause, then, applause.

 

Second half - Dénouement

 

00:51 - 01:50 - The Artist and I drove loops of Waterloo, Parliament, Princes and Eden Terrace. The sound was recorded in situ - the images have caught up with the soundtrack which is now experienced contemporaneously with the subject (car stereo). Interposed with video of ducks at Western Springs Reserve(13).  The delightfully confusing questions posed in the earlier commentary find their resolution here. Narrator (the Artist) and character (Meg) are so closely entwined, in such sympathy, that it no longer matters to whom the expression is attributed. All narrative possibilities hover in suspension. The intent here was to convey the sense of arrival, the debutante. Note the implicit narcissism in the creation of the work, as well as in the meta-narratives referred to elsewhere(14).

 

01:50 - Elam Computer Suite - haphazardly tacked on the end, a puzzling conclusion(15).

 

Fergus Porteous

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1. Potpourri /ˌpoʊpʊˈriː/ a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant materials, used to provide a gentle natural scent, commonly in residential settings - often placed in a decorative bowl.
2. Filmed on a Handicam, predominantly by the artist herself, we’d like you to think about what sort of viewer is implied by the device. Note the tension between the veracity of the Handicam aesthetic and it having been mythologised as a narrative tool; We’ll refer to it as the American Beauty aesthetic. Contrived? - definitely. Sentimental.
3. Note the reveal at 00:46 - the viewer should be surprised to find that the recording was not laid in post-production - imagine a veil being pulled slowly back over a face - the crowd's applause - followed by a gushing digest furnished by an unidentified BBC editor. Schubert died of Syphilis.
4. The commentary is time-stamped for navigational ease.
5. A couplet: SAP hangs from the glinting shine; Of the star of Venus. A golden chime.
6. Reminiscences of dusk as a young child - staying with our grandmother on the farm - at night the warm hum of the wild growing heaving wet earth of the Waikato basin - mosquitos bumping against the window. Two weeks before publication our beloved grandmother died at Waikato Hospital. The Artist and the Writer returned to the farm and stole lemons.
7. A shot with many redeeming features - sort of an attractive formalism, a few reflections, interesting lighting - the the top of the escalator beckons softly. Not my favourite shot but I've certainly seen worse.
8. A soft horn call - notes in the music - even pace, one, two three, - and (try and time it) to pause on the sky and the crane - it's morning, I can tell you with certainty, because this is the view from the conservatory in our apartment and it faces North-East. The sun - you can see it warming the sky on the right - is about to rise. That lightsabre like form on the left is a tower crane with a green halogen up its spine. Over coffee in the mornings we watch the operator climb into the cabin. Presumably he defecates in a bucket to be carried down each evening.
9. Possibly a good example of Barthes’ twin concepts of studium and punctum: studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of an image, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it.
10. The complementary torts of invasion of privacy and intrusion into seclusion are a growing area of law in New Zealand. Privacy is notoriously difficult to precisely define, but the torts serve to recognise that contemporary society is increasingly conscious of the value of having a sphere in which we can keep ourselves to ourselves (The Law of Torts in New Zealand - 6th Edition - Thompson Reuters). The act of filming this shot is almost certainly an actionable example of intrusion into seclusion, and following its publication will likely amount to an invasion of privacy. The Artist and the Writer hope the barrister concerned receives this example of dramatic irony in good humour.
11. The tears resulted from a petty fight with the Writer - dishes, laundry issues.
12. A performing arts concept coined by German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht first used the term in an essay on "Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting" published in 1936, in which he described it as "playing in such a way that the audience was hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters [...]. Acceptance or rejection of their actions and utterances was meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of [...] in the audience's subconscious" - John Willett, ed. and trans., Brecht on Theatre (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964), 91.
13. You can ask the Artist about Duck symbolism. Compare; The Sopranos. I happen to remember this particular evening well as it occurred during a moment of personal crisis for the Artist. She reached out that night to a special friend who accompanied her to Western Springs under the pretense of holding the flash while she filmed. A fruitful romantic gesture.
14. This scene is a confusing mish-mash of narrative elements. The delightfully confusing interplay between the (ambient) sound and (implied) artistic intention melt the distinction between the expression plane and the content plane.
15. Credit to the meme account 1080mhz.