I like the idea still but it also feels a bit complicated. And I know that my plan was to get rid of this meta-narrative I had in the midterms video, but honestly I think to a big part that was what made it so interesting to me. Breaking the 4th wall, as in queer theatre, foregrounding the relations and everything happening around it, centering my own thoughts on the narrative while showing it. I think this can be a technique I apply again for this final video, but I need to film the things first.
And figure it out in the process that was always the plan.
I cannot shake the feeling that these pure-narrative videos would lack a certain DIY-campiness. One that feels inherent. It’s either extremely simple or over the top interwoven and complex, absurd.
My idea at one point was to propose a different queer aesthetic, one that is grounded in rural sensibilities, I think this could be achieved through the use of bread, rural environments as backdrops, simple light, no neon or chrome.
The narrative strings together a desparate and foolish attempt at finding identity in an state that is defined by constant alienation, constituted on the one hand through (perceived) rural insularity and on the other hand liberal urban irrelevance. A struggle that - I am proposing - is inherent for a lot of rural queer identities.
Resolve is found through queer theory and methods, ones that reinstate a positive dissonance, be it through ruination, breaking of straight lines or breaking of the 4th wall. (Jason Parry, Sara Ahmed, Stefan Brecht) All of the techniques refuse assimilation or the fight to be acceptes as any “straight/heteronormative” entity, and rather foreground the arbitrariness of the normalisation of heteronormative sensibilities through abstracting and interrupting straight cosmologies in order to hint at the way that all identitiy is performance, some being more accepted and thus slipping into the normative fabric of everyday life.
So blah blah, ideally it is a narrative that is free from conventional ideas of storytelling, embraces the abstract and also breaks character at random. A mode of sharing a story that allows all relational elements to seep deeply into the outcome and does not care for suspension of disbelief. A mode of storytelling that enables people to reflect directly and metaphorically, sincerely offering new aesthetics and thoughts albeit a bit uncomfortable. Sincerity is the key to cringe and a plethora of other uncomfortable things that need more embracing.
Spent yesterday reading more and just taking time away a bit from the project. And while there is always the possibility of switching it all up (going more into performance vs video work or simplifying the fuck out of it, I also believe I have a kind of vision for this and a month left to playground the entirety of this video and that sounds promising to me.)