In case you’re interested, please turn on Closed Captions – CC – English(UK) – for a translated transcription of discernible dialogue fragments.

Some comments

I am obsessed by the notion of Place.

What constitutes a place?

Is it the combination of the Ten Thousand Things that exist at that location at that moment in the never-ending flow of change?

It certainly isn’t the Idea we have of that place.
Because the moment we physically arrive there, a “place” has the habit of destroying every notion, every expectation, every preconception we had about it.
Once we shut up and listen, our Self, and all other notions we have, seem to bleed out into the totality surrounding us – like ink into blotting paper.
We get absorbed by the specificities of our surroundings – objects, sights, sounds, colours, movements, smells, touch – contact. We share the air, the light, with everything around us.

Recording this video

More text to follow…

Recorded on 5 December 1999, Kinabatangan, Sabah, Borneo.
This is a chapter from my long-form video The Bodies of Nobodies (2022)

Post Script

Many of my videos explore the idea of Place. And of the idea of Being in a place.
Some of these include:

N/Ontope (2001)
Waiting for the Monsoon (2022)
Summoning (2022)
Nike (1996)
Image and Pilgrimage (2024)

While in Borneo, a week prior to recording Plant Station Arcs, I also recorded the footage for my video – Includes two pans and an ice-cream van (2022) – that explores the same experience of Place and Being.

In thinking about our being in the world, or being at a certain place, I’ve developed the idea of the – Ontope – which definitely has a bearing on this text and my videos in general. That text can be found here.