rmk @ sevenmaps

This page will hold my rambling thoughts/ideas/reflections untill I or someone else bring them to the front page. I feel safer here - I can write more freely.

I really like the premise of this project. In the beginning I didn't see why there would be a need for the $2000, like I saw the need for a month of editing for 'American King'. But then I thought about it, all the possibilities that the two grand opens up for. Not just travelling, like going to Europe, or California, or the Mexican border, in order to shoot some footage in exotic environments, but also in terms of what would be possible even in New York.

Speculations

On his own [http://sevenmaps.pbwiki.com/Daniel's%20page page], Daniel said something about wanting to be challenged as an artist, not treated as a correspondent. "i'm only saying that the root of this idea was about being challenged as an artist as opposed to being a correspondent for hire."

We are to donate money for him to be able to better solve the challenges we put together for him, via the five filters. So, the way he sees it, a challenge like "go to the Mexican border and talk with people" is not the kind of challenge he was looking for.

So, I guess, we must be much more conceptual in the limitations. A conceptual limitation could be to insert a strict lighting regime, or something like that. Some of the suggestions that have come already are dealing with this.

How can we challenge Daniel in terms of topics/theme in the videos without requesting that he goes and shoots something Specific? Perhaps Daniel himself could clarify more of what he sees here, and the others of us could also look at it.

In either case, the wiki is now up again after a few days of downtime, and we have the rest of this month to come up with some ideas, both in rough format as well as finely tuned challenges, that we can let Daniel battle with in August.

more later...

Tangents

There is something about the creator that is always so visible in Daniel's work. He is the creator, even though you don't see his face. His voice is there, guiding us, or the music he composes himself and adds on to it. It creates marvellous works, but I am, like several others who have commented on the front page, interested in the relationship between himself and others. What would he do if he was given footage that others have taken, as a part of this project? It could be his wife that covered parts of her day, her view of her day, with the video function of a still camera. Or it could be a fellow videoblogger, or a non-videoblogger. Someone Daniel knows from his college days that he hasnt met in years. ... So, yeah, how woud D deal with material shot by others? How would he create meaning from it?

But then again, this also deals with the concept of randomness that D talked about in his movie. Where would the limitation be?

In either case, relationship between the artist and the others is interesting to me.

Areas

• Lighting. As I see it, there is a certain lighting in a lot of Daniel's work. This beautiful hue - is that even the correct word? It is in either case very beautiful to watch, but I would like one of the maps to work without this lighting, without these filters. I will point to specific examples as I find them and think more about this.

• Procedure. I would like that there is as much transparency about the procedure of making these seven videos as possible. That the raw material should somehow be represented, if not available online somewhere. That we can see what Daniel cuts away. I have often wanted to stand behind Daniel, watching him work on editing of some of his pieces, how he actually puts the files together. Craftmanship. To me, transparency in terms of that would be very satisfying. Of course, to an artist, this might not be the most of fun.

I agree; an opportunity for the viewer to learn. --Dooser

so... could we host a "behind the scenes"-esque production-notebook (ala chasing windmills) or discarded footage somewhere, is this what you mean? In terms of time, this might have to come later, as a reflection on the project perhaps? I now wish we'd got Daniel to keep a journal (online of course) over the past few weeks which could form part of the project. trine -filter

More to come - I created this separate page because I don't want to clutter down the front page too much. HOWEVER, this is not just my page, so if you have questions or comments just chime in.

Best,

Raymond M. Kristiansen

dltq.org