Rachelle Rahme and Victoria Keddie: A Dialogue Ongoing

Email correspondence between Rachelle Rahme and Victoria Keddie began on May 14, 2010.  The transcription follows this introduction. This correspondence remains unedited, unabridged, and documents the process towards collaborative participation. Future arrangements are being made, and the dialogue continues.

hey V

well – i work in a few formats.
I free write/illustrate – sometimes I feel like my work is sort of
Shakespearean in the word plays, and also reflects our times in the
associations between the trains of thought, the way i feel commercials
and TV programs try to. the illustration aspect of my work is less
hampered maybe by these historical ideas. this portion of my work
doesn’t exist in a reproduced form, yet – just notebooks, but I don’t
see them as private, more a medium in their own right, but once turned
to them for lyrics for a song. they were some notes about rhythm, so
it fit.
I make music as well under the name Roe Enney. Maybe this exists
where Syd Barret and Trisomie 21 graffitti on Jim Morrison’s Parisian
grave. I make 4-track recordings of my songs at home, and typically
vocalize melody and lyrics over the recordings in an unplanned way, so
that they are triggered purely by the rhythms in the music. Then, for
my performances, I typically translate these home records into a set
that I am able to perform live and solo. Since I started performing
solo at the beginning of last September, I’ve found that all my shows
have been different. On the day of my performances, I practice the set
I’ve created anywhere from 6 to 12 times (or as much as I can stand),
making a unique recording of each run-through, which I give to
enthusiasts free of charge at that night’s performance. Usually there
are only 6 to 12 people there to begin with, so most people get a
unique recording that I don’t even have. It’s not that big a deal to
me, but people have expressed that they like having a unique object.
From me it’s more of an apology, because I feel bad making people pay
for my shows.
My film work is like my alchemical work to me, and I invest a lot
of myself in to it without thinking much about it. I shoot Super 8
solely right now, but am experimenting with other film formats. Not a
lot of people have seen my Super 8s, though I am having my first real
screening of them next Friday. Otherwise I’ve screened them twice at
Anthology. Shooting makes my blood rush in a different way than
performing, not a prickly body experience like performing, very smokey
and mellow, and in this way maybe intrinsic to a more consistent part
of my daily nature. I decisively have chosen not to edit my Super 8s.
I like the way the images I capture all sit on this loopy roll
together as is, and I tend to shoot shorter and longer shots in a way
similar to what you can see in narrative film making.
I’ve started to take my collage work more seriously, as a friend
has encouraged me, and am currently working on a body of work to
exhibit in January 2011 at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning.
That must be it, right? Funny enough, I’ve outlined my work more or
less in the chronological order of how I came to each medium, collage
being newest for me. I hope this gives you a clearer picture of where
I’m coming from as an artist. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts
as well, maybe you can tell me what inspires you? From the information
above, how are you interested in focusing on my work? Would you prefer
to focus on just one of the mediums, all of them, or a combination?
It’s up to you…(May 14, 2010)

R-

We are on such similar parallels. Im excited to both read your email and respond to it. Let me first explain a bit about my work…

Well to start, I spent a handful of years painting. Large tapestry like paintings of moving forms- forms pushing through space, falling, exploding, imploding. The work derived from my ongoing obsession with collage. Perhaps with painting, I felt the need to engage in some [more] liquid medium to reorganize form over the immediately tangible paper objects I that came easy for me to compose.

I left painting after finding it limiting for what it was I was after.  I played with space, installation in rooms. I began working making collages and them animating them. This is something I continue to do through to today. I am obsessed with stop animation-working with film on camera, drawings, and hand made puppetry. I also got into making short films. I was always obsessed with film. The machinery, the projections, the movement. Using the situationist idea of a space as practice, I used that as my motto. I am interested in investigating the absurdity of pre conceived narrative. and in breaking down structural conceptions of form and medium.

Forgive me, for as I write, I see that i a forcing my tangents to stay on one track. Not natural for me to do. But lets see, animation, film,…

Now, its worthy to note that my art practice halted a bit when I attended graduate school for Museum Studies at NYU, working with time based media collections. I crossed over into many courses at Tisch with the MIAP, Cinema Studies and Performance Art departments. I graduated in August 2009.  During my time in graduate school I followed what was a natural course to pay attention to obsolete media in the effort to preserve. My goal was to preserve the ephemeral, the experience, and moreso now, it was in preserving histories “junk”.  This is where my obsession with audio formats comes in…

I noticed how audio formats within media collections were often disregarded or overlooked. I always had a love for early recordings, vinyl, shellac, cassette, open reel. Now it became something I could work with preserving, and had learned to do so. I worked with implementing an audio transfer station at AFA. I also now work with audio recordings- from the folk blues revival in the 1960′s, Newport Jazz collection and Folk collection, and unhoused, or orphan, audio—most currently a long running show on a public radio station. In working to preserve this media, it very easily ventured into my own practice, and I started making recordings.  I have a berringer mixer, a couple of pedals, my violin(my heart), a guitar, my voice, and a small magnus organ. Vocal percussion intermixed with lyrics-stemming from my writing, my poetry and shorts. My sound compositions have taken over to be a large part of my art practice. I will send you some works. I am currently collaborating with a friend who at the time, was living in Hawaii, in a series of sound correspondences. In place of letters, we used tracks, the result is beautiful i think. We are now using these tracks to make stop animation works.

I work in live performance embodied as different characters, as well. I just finished a trilogy called “The Redemption Trilogy” at the Convent of Saint Cecelia in Brooklyn. I performed music through these different personas,as they embodies different ideas surrounding the fetishization of religion. I will have full audio and video us shortly, but heres a brief look at what i’ve done. -The performances spanned two weekends in May. http://cargocollective.com/gedanken

I work in super 8mm as well. and 8mm. I too, haven’t shown this much at all. And feel similar in how it feels so natural for me. I have a cannon super 8 with sound, but prefer always to record image and sound separately.  This is also how i show my work. I will always either show work in silence, (with an occasional dry cough), or with audio component. I, as well work in the energy of improvisation and feel it necessary to answer to the space in real time as it is shown. This is why i tend to conceptualize a piece, but let it take on whatever course it happens to. Much more exciting this way. More alive.

I am quickly taking up a large portion of email text space. ! I hope i have made some sort of sense in my rambling. I think we are two artists living on the same planet of thinking-or at least from what i’ve heard in your recordings and from what you have written. I am excited to work on some sort of project with you. As of now we have three common components: collage, sound, and film.  hmmm…Worthy to note my name, Gedanken comes directly from the definition:

gedanken – /g*-dahn’kn/ Ungrounded; impractical; not well-thought-out; untried; untested.

“Gedanken” is a German word for “thought”. A thought experiment is one you carry out in your head. In physics, the term “gedanken experiment” is used to refer to an experiment that is impractical to carry out, but useful to consider because it can be reasoned about theoretically. It’s too easy to idealise away some important aspect of the real world in constructing the “apparatus”

love that word.

will see you at AFA in about an hour.

Till soon, V….(May 14, 2010)

Rachelle, Lets make a plan, date, time for exchange. would love to record an impromptu music session and perhaps use that toward a dual film projection on 8mm …?

Thoughts?

although the music alone is enough to engage in such short time…

planning proposal at Zebulon for a “Dualism” experience.-perhaps this can be facilitated into program.

ok back over to you and till soon.

best,

V  (May 18, 2010)

For your beautiful response to my inital letter, I give you

A Pear – A Tusk

as far as business goes:

what does your schedule look like coming up? I work all day on

Wednesdays (till 9pm) and Saturdays (till 8pm) but don’t mind meeting

after. On tuesday, thursday, and friday nights i work after 5:30.

those are my anthology nights. this monday night i would be free, but

i have a rehearsal for PostTV on tuesday night. i gather that you work

during the days M-F, is this true? there is sunday though. This and

next work for me. Can’t wait to meet. I know we are supposed to meet

within the context of the Migrating Forms Festival, and it’s ending

soon. I don’t know if we should care about that time limit though.

Bradley announced this project via the internet, which is a time warp

anyway.

it’s funny that some people bradley has paired are “meeting” over a

long distance, across continents even. do you find that NYC can feel

like that when two people are trying to get together for the first

time? at least so far we’ve seen each other at anthology. i’m going to

be at anthology tonight with a couple projectors viewing some films

for a screening i’m doing tomorrow night. i’m forwarding you the

flier, though i don’t think you should come, unless you are incognito,

so i won’t recognize you. there will be other audience members there,

and i believe bradley would say that would break the rules. i’m

opening to any suggestions. i’d like to experiment with you on the

musical improv idea, too!

i’m interested in what you would say about the narrative aspects of my

super 8 films, since you wrote “the absurdity of pre-conceived

narrative” – because while i do not pre-conceive of a narrative in my

films, i do find a narrative in them often (foot-loosely?) and maybe i

use my hand-held filming to achieve this somehow?

your spake of audio formats made my mouth water, or maybe that’s just

my body coming to post-anthology benefit last night.

another coincidence – my brother lives in Hawaii and I am going there

so see my new niece at the beginning of July. maybe you have something

you’d like me to deliver?

gedanken,

rachelle (May 20, 2010)

After my initial sparse reply regarding today…

Hello and good morning lark! Hoping the Benefit was a grand evening!

I would be able to meet Saturday night (or afternoon-ish possibly), Sunday night or at the very latest monday night-but i am flying out to Dallas first this Tuesday am. Monday may not be ideal.

What say you?

I would love for you to come over my place or i can gladly come to wherever. I live in Crown Heights (worthy to mention)…

Looking very much forward.

ah, and if time restricts us from full exchange, then i say we should try at least to meet and talk over a bottle, eh? Would love to set in motion the start of a dialogue to continue well after the MF deadline.

I have much to respond to from your emails and hope that one day this weekend can work.

…and i like your flyer. and a screening on clinton st no less!-close to me. but i have a benefit to go to tonight, alas…I woudn’t want to break the rules ∞∞∞

Very best,

V…(May 21, 2010)

To paraphrase the rest: Midnight has passed. We chose to devote this experience to the dialogue of our initial engagement. Plans are ongoing and in motion toward a collaborative sensory work. The proposed event at Zebulon, Brooklyn NY,(in above email) is indeed happening on June 30, 2010. This event is an option for a live collaboration. Excitedly, we talk further….

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