Dear Internet and How to... Lean Too performed at Hair Antics Micro-cinema
I preformed Dear Internet for the first time in Canberra early in 2023 at Hair Antics micro-cinema. It seems a little ironic to write this up for consumption of the internet but in a commitment to writing up my practice for Time of Objects. I place it here.
Affordance of development
Early development of the work began with paying attention to my fatigue in living a digital life. This feeling bubbled up in bits of scribbled writing on paper, in my personal smart phone notes and in typed word documents. Some of the writing I remembered doing could not be found. Collating this in a single document and trying to visualise what it might be, the idea got complicated. After seeing the Teaching and Learning Cinema perform the Mc Grice work at Hair Antics I became convinced the work needed to be simplified. Simplification came when I took the idea from theory to practice and started piecing it together with 16mm materials and the apparatus which was not only central to the theme but necessary as a design feature to help create and mould the work. It was the affordance of making it real that helped me make something concrete at all.
I attempted to document the process by filming it sometimes with a head worn action camera or with a digital camera rolling on a tripod. This I new made me more self conscious but perhaps also made me pay attention to the performance side of what was to become Dear Internet. It made me conscious of the body interacting with the apparatus and how I might put this on show and into the audiences mind when they watch it.
The affordance of working with the 16mm apparatus showed its hand when my minds eyes moved from page to the physical materials and objects. The materials allowed for creative decisions to be made because they provided boundaries to be traversed or avoided in the physical world. I also consciously took a stance of openness and attention to allow thoughts and responses to occur. Instead of focusing on a finished product my approach was to see what would happen by doing.
The process roughly took shape by:
1. Writing, reflecting and re-writing
2. Recording and editing the soundtrack digitally. I often check my grammar by using speech to text. When I heard the computer reading the text I decided this was better than my voice which I initially thought I would use.
3. Organising and breaking down the footage on the winding bench in searching and assessing mode
4. Assembling 16mm found footage and original shot material on the Steenbeck while playing it against the edited sound track. Experimenting with different speeds and direction.
5. Testing screen sizes and different screen material to project onto
6. Gathering objects at home to construct a portable winding platform with a screen that would feature as a kind of performance object.
Significant parts of the performance came from mistakes and failures which then become features and positive agents of affordance. For example I shot the opening title sequence upside down by mistake. This then led me to considering back projection, keeping this title reel separate, hanging it to were the audience could see it, and using the winders in both directions. All things that became significant features of the performance.
Before the show
Driving down to Canberra on a 30 degree day with cumbersome gear I really wondered if it was at all worth the expense and time. I was nervous not knowing if it would connect with an audience. I wondered if the combination of ideas I put together might have no meaning for other people or that I have muddied the water too much.
My judgment of the work was that is was a ‘work-in-progress’. That it was not complete. I expected that the work might change after the screening. That learning from this first performance would reduce or expand it. That technical problems might need to be incorporated or adapted. The three risks I saw where:
1. The globe might fail I had no back up as the projector viewer is not a common device.
2. The image be too dim for an audience to see.
3. My performance nerves might reduce my ability to adapt or fix the shutter effect that can turn the image into a blur and make it not easy to see.
I have heard Richard Touhy speak of priming an audience for expanded works. That how the audience enter the performance space is part of this priming. I thought a short introduction for the work would also help it to land. I planned to tell the audience Dear Internet is about digital fatigue of our times, beyond a frustration of password management, it is about how the materials we live with change our perception to our environment and change our behaviour and attitudes. It is a critic of technology that explores process through action. How what we do with our bodies changes our we are in our environment. I also wanted to incorporate that early projectionist hand wound the projector and that this art form changed with the automation of projection that came with sync sound.
An article (see below) about ChatGPT days before I screened Dear Internet made me feel I was expressing an ever growing concern for where technology was heading and the need to keep it in check. A reminder to be attuned to how technology corals our experience and how we are in the world. I made a note that GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. What a strange name and something for future exploration.
Setting up
The three of us, Louise Curham. Carolyn Huf and I arranged to meet for half an hour or so the night before to be in the space and work out, where things where to go and in what order. I was a lot to do in a short time. I was fascinated that Lou hadn’t quite settled on what she would show. She seemingly comfortable, on the forward edge of creating to performing. I wanted to be as prepared as possible. I tested the strength of the globe on the winder for Dear Internet. I tested my projector and lens on which I would screen a contract work print I had made of How to…Lean Too. My short throw lens produced a bigger picture than fitted on the wall. I decided I would change lens during the film as an extension of preforming projection.
To borrow the Arthur Cantril term, Event Packages takes into account equally the event and the package. The event is a time based thing, that occurs with a kind of underling of a moment. Package, suggest themes but also the environment. How will people be welcomed, what does the space suggest? The three of us decided to select our own material with little consultation. Interesting links can emerge on their own. In deciding what work to show I settled on How To… Lean too to accompany Dear Internet not because they are similar in theme but because they have a similar approach. They both have a soundtrack with text that holds the shape of the overall effect. The text is a collage of material on the same subject. Their is a subtle shape to the structure of the text which creates a beginning, middle and end. Another approach to curation is I could have shown work such as Window which has no text to create a contrast.
Performing Dear Internet and How to… Lean too.
While performing the piece I felt the quite attention of the audience. It was special to share this moment with the room of 20 or more people. It felt worth it. I also felt a wave of emotion, something like grief, that underpinned making the work for me. A loss of connection to nature and our environment. A loss of choice in how one interacts with the world through the things we live our daily life with. Film making for me is a cathartic experience and I felt lucky to share that with a room of people that must bring so many different perspectives and stories to what they where observing.
Changing lens and speed during the projection of How to… Lean Too didn’t quite go to plan. The contact print I have made is quite dark in places, also when I changed speeds the brightness noticeably changed which impacted the readability of the image. I may have over complicated the screening of it but trying speed changes and lens changes. It was an experiment in context and performance. Perviously I have showed the work on a loop in a gallery setting wear audience members wear headphone and watch it on a small monitor. An intimate context. With the micro-cinema experience, it was to be shown larger than life and in a group setting. My partner who had seen it on a small screen before suggested that she missed the intimacy of the smaller screen. I want to make a better print of it and try it again.
Reflections after the event
Louise Curham and I discussed the event the next day. Of Dear Internet and How to …Lean Too she commented that both pieces have strong sound track but that I might get them mixed so the volumes and equalisation is better. A technical note I would like to improve. She also said that she was interested in it as the work said something. It appeared to present a position. To have an opinion. In contrast she said many experimental works from the history of the canon appear mute or seem reluctant to take a position. When comparing structure films against narrative films they can appear mute however there is a reflexiveness quality to structural films that in focusing on the material qualities of film. My approach of structural or formal design when incorporating the apparatus is to explore how things work. To bring the audience in to the process so they can be aware of all these things at play. It is like the rabbit and the duck image. I am attempting to have them see both at the same time. To look through the material and have its magic work on you and to step out of it and look at it from an discerning and critical point of view which questions the magic too. It is in engaging with story this way that spectators bring themselves to the work. It is the unknown part of what I am doing and the part that makes me feel most uncertain. This to me feels like the dangerous part when I attempt to see how far I can take an idea before it falls over.
We also discussed our mistake in not doing an acknowledgment of country. This was a big learning and a failure in rushing the set up and not discussing how we would introduce the show. Louise did the introduction. I was politely waiting to a moment to speak. In retrospect I should have politely interrupted. The good side of this mistake is we entered into a broader discussion about working with Indigenous people. Indigenous poet she recently interview suggested these goal posts:
1. Remember the history
2. Starts with one
3. Be consistent
4. Make it visible
5. Show people are welcome
6. Hold an event that is specific
I think the words ‘be consistent’ is really helpful here. Some of my thoughts about not interrupting Louise are really excuses for not being consistent. Being consistent will now be my guide because it helps navigate, nerves and uncertainty.
References:
An AI tool called ChatGPT is capable of passing — or at least nearly passing — medical licensing exams, according to US researchers. Now, wi












