Dear Marie, This task was hard. M:I It was hard partly because of the quantity and range of footage provided. It seemed a mission impossible to shrink and combine it in a five-minute film. It took me a long time to establish the parameters that could shape the material. It...
Alan writes: This week’s task derives from two things. The first is that I enjoyed the psychogeography of Task 12 and would like to continue with something of that approach. The second is that I enjoyed working with you last week when I helped to film your ‘Blood Work’ workshop...
Dear Marie, Thanks for the ‘psychogeographical’ Task 12. You asked me to chose an unfamiliar area and spend at least an hour wandering through it. My friend Erin Pickles was visiting us for a few days so I asked her to join me in the scripted meander. I decided to...
Alan writes: This task comes from two things. Firstly, it struck me in our recent series of tasks and responses to do with time that we have been concerned with ourselves to the exclusion of other people and of the social ecologies in which we are immersed (perhaps a risk...
Dear Marie, I enjoyed doing Task 10. It allowed me to indulge my taste for minimalism and abstraction—and finally to make an object I actually (or almost) like. Here’s that object, made in response to your instructions. Below, I try to justify why and how this is a response to...
Alan writes: I didn’t deal persuasively with the theme of reenactment in my response to Task 8, perhaps partly because I’m so concerned with questions of reenactment in my traumatically unfinishable work on the film The Battle of Algiers. But I appreciated being asked to think about it, and I want...
Dear Marie, Thank you for this task. What I liked about it was the opportunity and imperative to link the physical yoga (asana/posture) practice directly with writing, and to think about the practice in terms of temporality and temporalities. I haven’t managed to perform the task as precisely, according to...
Alan writes: One of the things that came up in my response to Task 6 was the place of ‘second thoughts’ – the rethinking of or reworking of ideas, objects or activities you’ve already had, made or done. In my ‘Dad Dancing Film’, I provided two versions of the ‘DB’...
Thanks for this task, Marie! It turned out to be too much fun, and I had to scale back my ambitions for fulfilling it. I must admit, I was afraid that you would also respond to Task 5 by getting me to dance the choreography you came up with. And...
Alan writes: The issue of gendered family roles emerged inevitably strongly in Task 4, and this task picks up the theme. The task also grows from the discussions we continue to have about the definition and utility of parametric approaches. It derives too from a fascinating lecture I attended recently...