Poetic mode

Spaces of engagement—critical aesthetic practice, audience experience and the documentary-like work by Bettina Frankham looks at how you say what you say in relation to social justice and human rights. This was a challenging reading but proved useful when viewing Disorient because it showed a non-dominant perspective on the topic. Watching Disorient be viewed in the gallery space was powerful because it actively showed a poetic documentary being consumed quietly and in a very considered way. Much of this reading looked at aesthetics—in part, the origins of the word. I thought this was useful because aesthesis means ‘I feel, sense, understand’ among other things. Feeling, sensing, and understanding are interesting when making poetic media because everyone will have a different reaction to media, particularly non-traditional, interpretive media. In this case, the word ‘understand’ means to recognise and comprehend the feelings and ideas the poetic media brings up. I also enjoyed the idea of ‘defamiliarisation’ because deconstructing our ideas about people, objects or spaces is important when creating, particularly in poetic mode.

Experimental documentaries, particularly those in galleries are the sum of their parts. While they are consumed differently by everyone in the audience, they are typically consumed in-full, or there abouts. Our media will probably be consumed more passively and not in its entirety.

My sketches explore poetic mode by contrasting being alone on a train and surrounded by people (mostly strangers) at an event. They were both filmed at night and played with reflection and light. I wanted to juxtapose being on your own in public whether you are surrounded by people or entirely alone. Video 1 uses a metric montage to highlight the themes of ‘aloneness’ and being lonely. I wanted it to feel uncomfortable to watch and experience. Video 2 is a tonal montage that layers both events to show the dichotomy of being on your own and alone surrounded by people.