Some Comments

For about a decade centred around the millennium, I was extremely interested in the idea of using my video camera as ’seeing paintbrush’.

For a long time I’ve been interested in Buddhism in general, and Ch’an or Zen brushwork in particular. In this spirit, I was interested in the expressive, gestural, direct interaction with the camera and the world around me.

Helmut Brinker, in his book – Zen in the Art of Painting – describes the Zen painter’s ink line thus:

“The flowing ink-line, obedient to laws which, in the final analysis, have nothing to do with the object portrayed, does not conceal its generation; rather, it lets the viewer follow the process of its becoming, and thus take part in an act of creation which is at once timeless and fleeting.”

This for me, is a perfect analogy of what I was trying to achieve with these single-take works of pure flux.

Trying to short-circuit thinking and analysis in order to enjoy the moment of creation and sensory / sensual interaction with the world.

Malaysia

An ant who saw a pen writing on paper
Delivered himself to another ant in this way:
‘That pen is making very wonderful figures
Like hyacinths and lillies and roses.’

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

In March 2000 I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
One of the highlights of my journey, was a visit to the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. It was there that my love for Islamic calligraphy was rekindled. I was also fortunate to meet Dr. Sulaiman Hj. Esa who graciously shared his passion and knowledge of Islamic art with me.

Inspired by these seemingly disparate traditions, I went to the famous Petronas “Twin” Towers and recorded this video.

Music

I made the music in 1999 as one of a series of one-take, straight-to-DAT, improvisations. It was made with a few samples loaded in my Ensoniq ASR-10. Spontaneously, without any multitracking or sequencing; I tapped the keys and generated this soundtrack – in the same spirit as the video footage.

The video was originally completed in 2001.
In 2024, I remastered it in UHD with minor changes to the titles.

Post Script

An awareness of my camera moving through space is critical in many of my videos and photography.
Some of my videos explicitly explore an expressive, brush-like approach to handling the camera.

These include:

Concrete Painting