The Covers Are The Eyelids
Authors: Dani Landau, Sanja Sarman, Madhuja Mukherjee, Anouk Hoogendoorn, Josh Wagner
Format: Short Film
Duration: 6' 20"
Published: June 2024
Embedded Files
Research Statement
Research Statement
The Covers Are the Eyelids - Filming of projections on objects as a method for creative ‘concrescence’ (Whitehead, 1929/2010)
How can we create a collaborative filmmaking method within the creative constraints caused by COVID pandemic-related lockdowns?
The Covers Are the Eyelids was made using a method of projecting moving images onto objects and then re-filming the projections. The method of synthesis of components is made visible as the multiple layers can be seen simultaneously. This layering through a video projection method was used to combine components made by practitioners from diverse disciplines. The combination of components is a creative event that results in the frames towards the completed film. The film could be written about in many ways. This text concentrates on the layering-in because this filmmaking method produced a mode of collaborative practice.
This text describes the practical method of creative collaboration involving filming layered projections onto objects. Moreover, it outlines the creative combination involved in the selection of projected images and objects. The finished film explores this method of creative imbrication through practice. This imbrication can be understood as a practice which makes visible a ‘production of novel togetherness’, which Alfred North Whitehead terms ‘concrescence’ (1928/1978 pg.31). The core proposition is that the film acts as a tacit exposition of a process of concrescence. To make this claim, we first summarise the proposition of concrescence from Whitehead, we then articulate the filmmaking challenge as a research question. In the methods section we describe the creative practices that come together in filmmaking. In the outcomes section, we further apply Whitehead’s proposition of concrescence in order to articulate how the process is made apparent by the method of filming projections.
The event of concrescence from Whitehead:
Concrescence is a term from Whitehead’s speculative metaphysics described in the Gifford Lectures, published as Process and Reality in 1928, where Whitehead articulates how becoming is caused through relations between and amongst entities. In this way, things are understood as temporal events and termed actual occasions (Whitehead, 1928/1978 pg.15). Actual occasions are formed through the combination of prehensions coming together (Marks, pg.127). The prehensions coming together Whitehead describes as ‘components participating in a concrescence’ (Whitehead, 1928/1978 pg.21). Concrescence makes concrete the synthesis of the ingredients involved in the becoming of the actual occasion. In our film a concrescence is the video projection onto objects. In concrescence, some vectors are imbricated as positive prehensions, and those that are not included are understood as negative prehensions (ibid. 237). The concrescence (coming together of the projection and substrate) is an ’internal process’ (Lango, 1971) to the actual occasion. The outcome is termed the satisfaction (Whitehead, 1928/1978 pg.26) of the concrescence. The satisfaction of the concrescence makes the actual occasion ‘available as a data‘ Ivakhiv (2013 pg.199). As Hansen (2015, pg.13) describes, ‘Once the novel entities produced from the concrescence enter into the multiplicity of nature they become objective’.
Although the film can be more easily seen as nature as a process because of its ephemeral presence, Whitehead’s speculative categories are intended for all metaphysics, including enduring entities. Therefore, although film can act as an exposition of concrescence, Whitehead’s project enables us to understand all nature as event (Debaise, 2017). Therefore, for Whitehead, the creativity caused through concrescence belongs to non-biological creative synthesis as well as biological synthesis. The creativity novelty in concrescence is ‘always an exemplification of creativity’ (Stengers, pg. 308). Applying them to understanding our filmmakers’ practices, we can approach filmmaking as enabling concrescences as creative events.
Context
Context
Filming projections as a collaborative method:
The film The Covers Are The Eyelids was made in 2021 when restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic prevented travel. We lived far apart from each other and were unable to meet in person. The makers were brought together by an interest in cultural posthumanism and arts practices. The five researcher practitioners brought creative practice including creative writing, visual arts, philosophy, animation, and experimental non-fiction film practices. Each of these practices were layered through filming projections and overlaying sound to form the texture of the film. To describe each of the processes in detail is beyond the scope of this text. The practice research problem we addressed in this text was: how could we develop a creative filmmaking method that involved input from an assembly of practitioners with diverse practices separated by COVID pandemic lockdowns?
The method of projecting onto objects has been used widely in the fields of expanded cinema (Hamlyn, 2011), and video installation (Horowitz, 2010). However, using the recording of these projections onto objects as the final work is less frequent. The method is nonetheless occasionally used, for example, in documentary film. In Showland: Behind the Scenes at the Fair (2014), Joseph Briffa uses the method to bring together two events separated by time into a single frame. Our approach is built on established methods that are used to synthesize our collective associative and material experimentation processes to combine elements in order to create the film. These combinatory projection events enable the brining together of elements apart in space-time, and for them to take on zigzag patterns, imitating the concertina structure of the object used for projection.
Methods
Methods
Creative vectors:
The Covers are the Eyelids is a film made as part of the collective artistic research project ‘Fabulations for Future’, launched by Dr. Chrstine Reeh-Peters and Fee Altman. The collaboration took place over a series of Zoom-meetings and through the sharing and editing of documents and folders on online platforms.
Sanja began the process by showing a book of drawings she had made. The book is folded back and forth using the leporello binding style. The concertina form served as a catalyst for the experimental aesthetics involved in the filmmaking. The book is painted in gold, with drawings and paintings in sepia, blue and white. The book includes studies and distortions of Da Vinci's The Virgin, Child and St Anne but modified in such a way as to be dual rather than trinitarian, as well as drawings inspired by Quattrocento annunciations and studies of vaults and bone structures. The dual dynamics of the figurative drawings and the folded structure of the handmade book first suggested the zigzag folding method employed throughout the filmmaking the project.
Josh filmed in the forests and moors near his home in the West of Ireland in response to a process of grief and mourning over the loss of his mother five years before. He created a sculpture of bones and other found objects in a pair of willow trees, which Sanja integrated into her book.
The emerging project processes inspired Josh to write a ficto-criticism narrative from the perspective of an entity or agency thousands of years in the future, a community who evolved elsewhere and operated within unfamiliar social norms, who landed on earth long after the extinction of the human race. These organisms would discover a human artefact, but lacking the context to understand it, would try to find uses for it intelligible to their own cultural practices. Meanwhile, the individual author would be tasked with trying to identify through methods akin to archaeology and anthropology, possible meanings for the artefact before the thing had been mutilated beyond recognition.
Anouk has developed a practice of textile and paper works under the name sink sync (2019-present). They created a method Anouk calls ’Sink Cinema’ (Hoogendoorn, 2023), which they explain is ‘an inventory of images and texts that are absorbed and/or reflected by the sink’s stainless steel/marble/stone and spill before draining’. This process explores the fabulative qualities of text and image, to work with the spills and off-cuts from other works. The technique was applied to Sanja’s golden book – now also a forest artefact - and the moving pictures of the soaked golden pages were made into another layer of the film.
During our conversations the Sari and its folds acted like a metaphor for meandering rivers - some dying and some changing its courses. The Sari can transform into different shapes and can be used for multiple purposes, therefore, became a bearer of a myriad of meanings: it can be a means of escape, when you use the piece of cloth to climb down the window from a house where you are entrapped. It can be an instrument of death. But, in particular, Madhuja recalled a white Sari that her mother had embroidered. She applied a particular kind of stitch – ‘kantha’ -- which is used for quilt making in India and Bangladesh. This type of quilt is typically made by layering worn out and torn Saris and are traditionally embroidered with threads obtained from old Saris or by de-threading them.
Dani responded to the folded form of the book by proposing the method of combining the various media through filming the projection of videos made by the participants onto the book and sari, then building a soundtrack using an accordion. The sound of non-biological breathing we hear in the film is the air moving in and out of the accordion.
Folding fragments of time in filmmaking:
We spoke about associations with folds in the book. The folding of time of the past into the present of the filmmaking. We used the voice over to fold time in from an imagined future where the book object is found and is re-cognised from a future where books, the marks on the books, and their associations are forgotten. The words we hear are at the start and the end those written and spoken by Josh. In the central verse Anouk reads text by Sanja partially explaining how the project was made.
As the voice over and the images are fragmented, incomplete, they combine to build texture. In the visual image the book is presented in combination with the footage projected onto it. It is always seen partially. By being projected onto the Sari, book, folded palm leaves, and accordion the moving pictures of Josh’s Mourning Forest and Anouk’s Sink Cinema became a meandering river film form.
Outcomes
Outcomes
Film as philosophy moving image practice as an exposition of concrescence:
The practice involved projecting onto objects: the book, the leaves, the Sari, the accordion. Whitehead explains ‘Concrescence is useful to convey the notion of many things acquiring complete complex unity’. (1933/1967 pg.236). Each of the vectors in the filmmaking described above in Whitehead’s terms ingresses (1929/2010 pg.23) into the event of the becoming of the film. This filmmaking process involves a species of material combination in which creative vectors can be seen to become imbricated in a processual event. Concrescence is always understood as a process: it is a verb rather than a noun. In this filmmaking approach the process of concrescence is made apparent for a viewer because one can see how the layered moving image and substrate are combining to produce new textures.
The layered projections convey the sense of zigzag movement in combinatory practice. At 00:07 Josh’s forest cobwebs, at 00:27 the dripping of Anouk’s kitchen sink tap, at 00:47 the book itself in motion projected onto itself. Each becomes part of the texture of film through the imbrication produced by projection into the painting and drawing in the book. The book and other projection substrates at once unify the video material and acts as an enactment of its being in continual process of concrescence. At 00:56 the grid produced by the projection chip becomes apparent, making the technology of projection visible. At 01:32 the image was produced by projecting on to a palm tree leaf. The projection was filmed, and then that image projected image back into the book. At 02:35 the projected image moves across the book’s surface, tracing its form. In each of these examples highlights different aspects of concrescence, and this making apparent is possible because of the re-filming method.
At 02:38, there is a break in from the established series of projections onto the book. We see another projection onto Madhuja’s maternal Sari. We do not see it’s complete 5.5 meter size, and the embroidery is obscured by the folding of the Sari. In the folding of the book in Anouk’s sink video windowlight from Amsterdam reveals the Sari, and the book turning in the water obscures it. The projected image, and the projection substrate serve to obscure and reveal each other in portions of the image when in concrescence together.
In these ways, the method of filming projections on to objects enables the concrescence of the components outlined in the methods section above as ingredients into the event of the film production. The event of folding in becomes the focus of the camera. The method enabled the bringing together of materials into the film in a way that would not have been possible with sequential editing or compositing. This is because of the experimentation in physical space that projecting video enables. This created a spatiotemporal-sculptural editing method of combination in order to produce the ‘novel togetherness’ (1929/2010, pg.21) involved in concrescence.
Impact
Impact
The film was included in an online group exhibition ‘How to Become a Posthuman’ (2022-2023) which has been visited over six thousand five hundred times by people from sixty-four countries across six continents. The film has also been seen at the TENT Biennale in Kolkata, December 2022.
References
References
Briffa. J. (2014) Showland: Behind the Scenes at the Fair (Film)
Debaise, D. (2017) Nature as event: The lure of the possible. Duke University Press.
Hamlyn, N. (2011) Mutable screens: the expanded films of Guy Sherwin, Lis Rhodes, Steve Farrer and Nicky Hamlyn.
Hansen, M. B. (2015) Feed-forward: On the future of twenty-first-century media. University of Chicago Press.
Hoogendoorn, A. (2023) Surging, Sinking, Syncing, Sounding: notes on travelling with text(ile)s to All My Relations in Knúts Önnudóttir, S., Dahlqvist J. & Bjerstedt, S., (ed). ‘All My Relations’, Issue #1, Matter Journal. Malmö
Horowitz, G. M. (2010) Absolute Bodies: The Video Puppets of Tony Oursler. parallax, 16(2), 95-106.
Ivakhiv, A. J. (2013) Ecologies of the moving image: Cinema, affect, nature. Wilfrid Laurier Press.
Lango, J. W. (1971) Towards Clarifying Whitehead's Theory of Concrescence. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 150-167.
Marks, L. U. (2018) We will exchange your likeness and recreate you in what you will not know: Transcultural process philosophy and the moving image. In Vaughan, H., & Conley, T. Ed. (2018) The Anthem Handbook of Screen Theory. Anthem Press. pp. 119-43.
Sherburne, D. W. (1961) A Whiteheadian Aesthetic. Yale University Press
Stengers, I. (2011) Thinking With Whitehead, A Free and Wild Creation of Concepts. Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Whitehead, A. N. (1928/1978) Process and reality. New York: The Free Press.
Whitehead, A. N. (1933/1967) Adventures of Ideas. New York: The Free Press.
Peer Reviews
Peer Reviews
All reviews refer to original research statements which have been edited in response to what follows:
Review 1: Accept submission subject to minor revisions of written statement.
The Covers are the Eyelids is a fascinating and innovative collaborative project. The screenwork produced exemplifies a collaborative filmmaking method developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the innovative approach of re-filming projections onto various objects. The strength of the accompanying statement lies in the presentation of the collaborative methodology allowing for a meaningful interdisciplinary practice. The use of Whitehead's concept of 'concrescence' adds a philosophical dimension to the creative process, enhancing the originality of the work. The exact use of Whitehead’s concepts could be clarified and expanded upon, however. The practical work presented in the article demonstrates a novel and innovative approach to collaborative filmmaking. The use of projections onto diverse objects, such as a book, forest sculpture, sink, sari, and accordion, showcases a unique method of creative imbrication. This approach allows for the synthesis of different artistic elements and practices, contributing something new to the field of filmmaking.
The accompanying statement is well-organized, providing a clear and detailed argument that connects the practical work with theoretical and artistic contexts. The article effectively introduces the research question, outlines the collaborative process, and relates it to Whitehead's concept of concrescence. The contextualization within the broader fields of expanded cinema and video installation enhances the theoretical foundation. However, providing more in-depth descriptions of the creative vectors and their integration into the film would further enrich the statement.
The article makes a significant contribution to the field by introducing a collaborative filmmaking method developed under the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. The integration of diverse practices, such as creative writing, visual arts, philosophy, animation, and experimental non-fiction film, demonstrates the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration in the digital age. The method of filming projections onto objects as a means of concrescence is an innovative addition to the existing practices in expanded cinema and video installation.
The article effectively describes the methods employed, involving different practitioners and their respective creative vectors. The inclusion of specific examples, such as Sanja's Book, Josh's forest, Anouk's sink, Madhuja's Sari, and Dani's projection and accordion, provides a clear understanding of the collaborative process. However, it is not completely clear as to how Whitehead’s philosophical framework has been mobilised in the mode of production.
A more concrete definition of concrescence in the introduction would improve the clarity of the argument.
In summary, the article presents an innovative collaborative filmmaking method, effectively connecting theory and practice. While the practical work demonstrates significant originality, providing more detailed descriptions of the creative vectors and their integration, and expanding on the conceptual framework would further enhance the overall quality of the article.
Review 2: Accept submission subject to minor revisions of written statement.
The Covers are the Eyelids is an exemplary example of an artist collective working remotely from one another, drawing together disparate yet harmonious threads of inspiration, creativity, and intellectual experimentation, with fascinating integration of one another’s idiosyncratic craft and approach to form. However, some work needs to be done to contextualise this practice and frame it in reference to relevant scholarship.
The disparate art works all meander through chains of associations: In Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne we encounter an unfinished work, signifying the final days before Christ’s crucifixion, an inclusion that perhaps signals the distortions and never-finished evolution of symbology and narrative in human culture. This symbolism perhaps dies, perhaps changes course, or perhaps zig-zags as the pages of Sanja’s book suggest. Separately, an object of clothing, an Indian Sari, is used as a site upon which the folds in the fabric are visualised as meandering rivers - some of which die, and some that change course. These meandering rivers might be seen as a poetic expression of these threads of history and imagined projections into a future consciousness; all weaving their way across the surfaces selected by the artists.
In addition, other surfaces are explored, and images projected, all exploring reflections, folds, corners, and zig-zagging patterns. Referencing the ficto-criticism narrative in which beings in the future come into contact with human artefacts, the author states: “We used the voice over to fold time in from an imagined future where the book object is found and is recognised from a future where books, the marks on the books, and their associations are forgotten.”
There is a myriad of directions any contextual, scholarly work could take. One could invoke the futurist and ficto-historicist imaginings of author William S. Burroughs, or filmmaker Chris Marker, both of whom explored Orientalism, the collision of Eastern and Western perspectives, global citizenry, and the new, 20th century phenomena of linguistic philosophy; the deconstruction, or reconstruction, of meaning, and finally, the relations between time and memory. Take for instance this quote:
“Burroughs’s thinking is rhizomatic, as it celebrates heterogeneity and intentionally creates points of rupture, ways of breaking loose from old, calcified patterns.” (2004, p.19)
Hibbard both highlights the points of rupture and pattern so evident in this collective work, and also points towards the Deleuzian language of ‘rhizomatic’. One could also invoke the work of artists such as Stan Douglas; a figure in recent years who also examines complex relations between fact, historical narratives, fiction and the media through which, and upon which (the focus on surfaces), they are produced and communicated.
I recommend that the exegesis for this work find a way to support this story through relevant, contextual scholarship and adjacent artistic practices.
Reference
Hibbard, A. (2004) Shift Coordinate Points: William S. Burroughs and Contemporary Theory. In Schneiderman, D & Walsh, P (Eds), Retaking the Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalisation.
All reviews refer to original research statements which have been edited in response.
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