Concrete Painting

Imagine looking over someone’s shoulder as they use a brush with ink on paper – or spray paint on concrete. Whether it’s for calligraphy, graffiti, delineating a mist-shrouded pine bough, or a Twomblyesque doodle.
Now imagine being at the tip of the brush – or nozzle of a can of spray paint – as it moves. A mini rollercoaster ride, following the strokes, swirls, loops and abrupt backtracks. You find yourself at the stroke’s leading edge, the point of creation. Intention and expression, medium and message blend into one – like the ensō in Zen art – In the flow of no-mind.
According to Helmut Brinker – “A Zen work of art is : It does not mean.”
But that absolutely does not imply that it is meaningless.
I contest that, with the work ‘merely’ being – ie: not meaning, allows you to simply be. It is a profound opportunity.
We must distinguish between Meaning, and the meaningful.
My interest in using the camera in this way is definitely not only limited to the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Most of my work has as initial formal goal to short-circuit any form of ‘reading’ – or thinking.
In our information-flooded age, we are forced to only ‘scan’ everything we see or hear – trying, as quickly as possible, to extract the ‘relevant data’ – the semantic ‘meaning’ of the image. We simply don’t grant ourselves – or aren’t given – the time to just sit and soak up the sensory data – from the Latin ‘what is given’.
In most modern video editing, shots are all subservient to the narrative – like words in a semantic structure – never is the shot given enough time to fully dwell upon – to evaluate and appreciate for what it is.
It doesn’t have the time ‘to be’ – and therefore, neither do you – the viewer.
Everything is experienced on a meta level. Our bodily, sensory reality, is completely neglected – repressed, in an atmosphere of ideation and ideology.
Hence, a lot of my work is a rallying cry for a new Realism – to abandon any grandiose ideas and start appreciating the the overlooked, the neglected, the real everyday.
In this spirit, I’ve always been interested in experimenting with the idea of using my video camera as ’seeing paintbrush’ – as being paintbrush.
In 2005, not far from where I lived in Wuppertal, Germany; was large set of concrete stairs and retaining walls – completely covered in graffiti, tags and all manner of colourful graphic expression. It offered a perfect backdrop to experiment in the expressive, gestural, direct interaction with the camera and the world around me.
I did two improvised takes – ‘painting’ to and fro, hither and thither – taking my inspiration from the graphic environment around me. In a few places my arm and hand – holding the camera – appear as shadows, as I traverse time and space in front of the colourful concrete backdrop – tracing invisible lines in space with the camera.
In 2004 I started experimenting with software (Metasynth) that allowed me to turn colours and drawn lines into musical notes – MIDI data. This MIDI data I then used to play samples of classical instruments and choirs. The music used in this video, was created in this omprivised way – which very much corresponds to the visual form.