Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Wakow prattlings, 2/18

I made up some stuff and am now claiming that we discussed it on Sunday. Next up: City Council minutes.

Wakow 2/18/07

(present: Mindy, David, Nathan)

how to more closely fuse text and image?

Nathan: if you can do illegibly small text, then do illegibly large text too, so large you can see texture

M: more direct ways to tie in text/image/sound:
write text then illustrate?
Write based on images and sounds we’ve collected?

Go out to sites, collect, then write on what we’ve found later.

M is heading toward the one projector idea.

maybe give Grant some of the wicker deer materials, have him try to work into the photo?

M: I don’t want to be another banal Tulsa artist. I don’t care whether it’s interesting to people or whether people like it, I just want to do something that feels right and organic.

Focusing on integrating the various elements seems like a top priority.

Write 4 line poems? or come up with other techniques (only write 4 words)

we could all write a poem and then the edits could be recorded and incorporated into a flash thing: you actually see poems being crossed out and rearranged.

Could also do more with nets—write much more and then work on creating nets

can also borrow from Tom Phillips, cover words with images (small photos?—kind of a fake rebus?)

sound-integration:
Orson Welles: “The art of film is in the editing.” The issue of how we pick and choose is very interesting.

We can also play sound and sit around the table and write, or generate images somehow.

Oil can be used as a kind of backbone that heightens relevance to geopolitical moment

we should try to bring it back to the themes when and if it feels relevant

we don’t need to go to a church in order to produce something on religion—we just need to figure out what interests about religion and how we can engage with it.

Listened to the Church on the Move Sermon—he’s like a stand-up comic crossed w/ a used car salesman: defensive, hyperconscious of the crowd’s interest, then segues directly into the veiled suggestion that the church can make you money.

For next week let’s do some writing: use some image and sound and maybe google books as well as starting points. Perhaps also recoup material from first writing exercise (wicker deer etc).

Meet in evening, probably, since I’ll be flying in at 5.

Let’s think also about sound more conceptually: what is the “sound” of oil?
Gas station
road building
food creation

food as another issue—number one market for chain restaurants, homogenozation of food culture

Tulsa feels like a weird simulation city: everything middle class feels not real. Lower class feels very real. Upper middle class city feels like an idea of city instead of one that’s grown. As if you need to have one of every chain restaurant to be a real town. People here are happy with a certain standard and just feel like calling it New York or whatever.

Deep class insecurity: people want to believe that they are “people of class” and spend a great deal of time convincing themselves of this fact.

3 comments:

grantmatthewjenkins said...

Nathan, great idea on the large text. I'm going to work something up for a third "interscene" using that approach.

Using flash to capture the writing process is also a great idea, whoever came up with that. How does it relate to our chosen topic, tho?

PS: What's a "rebus"?

Who was it who listened to the Church on the Move sermon, and which one did you listen to? It's that idea that the church can make you money if you invest in it that is called "prosperity theology." Missy was telling me about it, and it's a huge part of that (and other evangelical/fundamentalist) churches. The idea, one that I was raise on, that it's good to be modest and middle class is gone from American Christianity.

At any rate, I see this theology as a main thread between industry (oil, in particular) and Christianity (in Tulsa for certain), so I want to examine and crystalize the language they are using to promote the ideas and practices.

"What is the sound of oil?" What a great question. Can any one say, "Ka ching?"

Davidedoro said...

Rebus is when words or syllables are translated into images, either based on sound, meaning, or cognate words. Check out http://douweosinga.com/projects/visualpoetry/ for a lovely example of this in action. Type in "what is the sound of oil" and see what comes up.

grantmatthewjenkins said...

Like, cool n stuff...