Ana Week 2 at Joshua Tree

Today is the beginning of week 2.  I am opening a new page so that new posts can be easily accessed.

11th November 2019

8.11 am Joshua Tree, as there is an eleven in the time code, I will consider the rule of 11 applied! 

Today I will meet with Guadalupe and Veronica, the last two women in the group.  This afternoon I will begin assembling the installation materials - audio first and then the video.

I hope that as I spend time with each woman's story I will be able to dialogue about specific themes that arise from each, in contrast to the more general impressions of week one. 

In spatial terms we move from landscape to figure....

PS After meeting Guadalupe and Veronica,  admin lunch to finalize purchase of installation materials.  I plunged to get the audio scores composed as well as transfer lots and lots and lots and lots of MOV clips into MP4, AVI which seems to be the only formats my computer can deal with... The transfer will take til tomorrow so I am working on the audio.  I am aiming to do 3 scores per day (as I need 3 ready for Sunday's event at the park.  The video editing is going to be really tight...less than a week....

I think it will be almost impossible to do two postings per day...But will try.

_____________________________________________________

12th November 2019

10.55 pm Joshua Tree time, almost eleven. Missed the morning post-  guilty as charged.

I have not stood up from the computer except to walk Jake (the dog) twice as I was dog-sitting. 

I am sure I am now even more deaf than before and definitely will need to go to the optometrist...

First three audio score (drafts completed).  

Main points of the method/ology now at work. I now face the reality of the 'taking care' as I need to be sensitive to the stories that have been shared, not to censor but how to convey them. Importantly,  I am being extremely careful of not imposing a narrative, really trying to bring out their stories, not 'my opinion of their stories'.. it would be tempting to make this some sort of Netflix  melodrama, but that would be an injustice, these women are really a powerhouse.

I have been asked to translate into the audio some parts so that the stories can be understood to both Anglo-Saxons and Latin Americans.  I am really really struggling with this, I do not want to be the foreigner in this...  I not want to speak in English in relation to these women, we have spoken in Spanish throughout, nor do I want to translate (the feisty PR in me is thinking ....learn the language....) but I must be nice.  So I am interjecting as little as possible, as softly as possible, as cryptic as possible not to colonise their stories, I feel there is too much English....Amber right up the alley of the conference..

I have composed a sonic 'base line' for each woman, based on the 'sense'of their characters and energies when I met them (a Eukinetic/somatic/sonic object), not on the basis of the content of the stories:  a simple looping ground (the metaphor of weaving continues) onto which I am then sewing the eleven one minute fragments of narrative.  Other sounds collected offer sonic/aural texture, suggesting other places, other geographies which poetically link to the narrative.  Yes, it is a tapestry, a quilt of stories,bodies, spaces and sounds....

Here is Guadalupe's story, IN DRAFT  And yes, they have all given me permission, to even use the sections with tears, as Cavarero says, there is a strong desire for their stories to be told....But to be extra sure,  we are also meeting as a group next Monday to see/hear the draft materials for the installation and yes I am willing to change aspects if they feel it is necessary. 

Feedback please...

[UPDATED VERSION COMING UP]
——————————————-

13th November 2019, 21.40 pm Joshua Tree

Worked on a further four scores today. There is no formula, except for the frame of 11 1-minute sequential narratives. Each audio is different, attempting to do justice to the unique tale each will hold. I was going to share but computer has frozen, will do so tomorrow.  There are some thoughts on the audio which I will also expand on tomorrow, impossible to elaborate thoughts in the slow typing of the iPad....so this is it for today....

Except that I am catching up with the posts of the ‘respondents’ and I am so happy that Dieca must have gotten all necessary co sent forms and the group work with the students has started!

Damaris, the full list is...(there are two versions!),  in no particular order
- Canción favorita
- Memoria (o momento perfecto)
- Persona importante
- Quien soy?
- Describe tus manos
- Tus ojos
- Baile favorito
- Gestos  de trabajo
- Gestos de esperanza
- Gestos  de pérdida/ausencia
- 11 palabras favoritas...

Tanja’s story, like my writings, especially those about childhood, a strange mix, whatever the woman that I am now remembers having seen and felt as a child...trying to be there, not letting distance and time distort...trusting the  tacit knowledge of the event in my body... as I will do in decades to come of these weeks here in Joshua Tree...the memory of each cut, scrape, fall through the rocks, morning skies, the Milky Way at night, coyotes at my door, falling leaves in the desert autumnal land...And the women.

PS 22.20 pm computer unfroze, here two more scores-  upbeat like their storytellers:


[UPDATED VERSIONS COMING UP]

_______________________________________________

14th November 2019, 9.31pm Joshua Tree

Six audio drafts with varying degrees of success, none fully complete yet.  Still testing finding a balance between all variables, each woman's individual story, the images these convey, how these translate into another language and how this will then correspond to the visual rhythm of the performance event and the video images... I guess these are the 'poetics' of the project, its dynamics...where did I read...methodology is political?  The three scores that I have shared are so different, Guadalupe had pauses, silences, articulation, a grounded gravity, Olga and Griselda flow with no stops (which I know I need to address), I was caught in the energy of their waterfall narratives...DO I 'fix' this?  Do I let it be as it is after all the pace of their narratives?  There are longer sections of English as their stories were difficult to telegraph, caught between I say it all or I dont say anything at all, still wavering....I will  give myself a good night sleep before I make any hasty decisions.   My ear is saturated that I cant hear anymore....

Interesting discussion with Niurca this morning about the English translation of sections of the stories for those who are not Spanish speaking, to get a 'sense' of the story. And perhaps this is precisely the point, it is not a translation, but my voice - the strange personae that both knows and not knows - is another respondent to the story, in a different language, to offer a kind of 'sense' (and in here I refer to phenomenological events, not semantic ones).  Perhaps my role is choryphaei, chorus leader, speaking in a language whose meaning is suggested but not fully disclosed.  There is an aspect of the stories that will remain unknown, and this should be OK...the women remain full authors of their stories, their disclosure to us important, but the stories remains theirs, theirs is the only version...which only they posses, inscribed within themselves.... here perhaps I am being more Nancy than Arendt.

Part of the day is taken up by practicalities of the upcoming 'parallel events' this Sunday at the National Park (Cap Rock) and next week at Palm Springs Museum.  Tomorrow we go to the Museum for technical meeting.  I must accept that tomorrow work with the scores will be limited.  I plan to submerge myself in this Saturday and Sunday.  Audio scores MUST be almost there by Monday...as I must begin to make decisions about the visuals...time is tight but it will be OK, because there is time...

__________________________________
15th November (recorded at 11.39am  Joshua Tree, but internet problems meant that it took forever to upload!

———————————————

16th November, 11.52 am

Trying to stick to the plan at least every now and again....Here is Marina- warrior woman, Caritina uploading.  I considered Clara's and Bernard's feedback, particularly about shifts and cuts, daring to be silent (I have publicly admitted to the need to work on that  in the film Holds no Memory )..have attempted to 'action' the feedback into these two, and certainly will do when I go back to do the final edit paying attention to micro and macro structures.  On purpose you will see that the audio ground for Caritina echoes that of Griselda, guitar although Caritina's tempo is more sustained...trying to find those nuances and cross-references, as if writing a series of short stories, or painting a series of portraits: as a sequence they are distinct but also bound by an invisible thematic, Clara suggests 'golden fibres'..... I keep gooing back to Arendt, stories 'embrouillee'...

————————————-

17th November, 6.37 am Joshua Tree

Getting ready for the first ‘in process’ sharing. On return I will upload Brenda’s score, finished last night. Getting there...

11.37 am, on schedule.

Just back from Artists’ Tea preview at Cap Rock. Three boxes, one score. Eleven participants. I will write longer tonight, great feedback received. The layers seem to be graspable even when coming into the event without previous knowledge...exhaling....

11.00pm, Joshua Tree, day and week coming to an end 

I have been trying to upload a 'talking head' of today's event but internet is failing.  Hopefully uploaded by tomorrow.

Here it is.