Mi Haiku

Exploring outside will be essential for this project. The notoriously dismal weather of Seattle will be perfect for a dreary poem.
The spontaneity of this project will be really, really fun to explore with. I think it's all about going out and finding a perfect moment to film, and I have some ideas about what to search for.
When reading some of the haikus, I gained strong recollections of moments when I would just stop and tilt my head for a second, thinking, "huh." Just really admiring the affectionately ironic parts of life, or a sudden recognition of beauty in an ordinary moment.
I like the idea of a spiderweb that appears in a corner eave one day, in all of its complexity and obvious time-consuming effort, and then getting destroyed by something in a second (perhaps by my stick):




spiderweb all night to make
a second and
it's torn by my stick



and another on an incessant dripping from a leaky faucet - how lazy we can be when all it would take was a minute's time to fix





drip drip of the sink
one turn of the wrench
it'd be fixed

Assignment 2: History and Structure of Haiku

Doing some research on haiku, I've found that the common definition includes a few factors. The setup for film haiku will be quite different, of course, but it'll be interesting to allude to the formal written structure of a haiku.
First is the basic format of syllables:

7
5
7

The next is that it includes a season word, or reference to the natural world, a nature sketch in words.
Commas, hyphens, elipses, and implied breaks are important between each line.
They can be as short as an individual 7-5-7 "renga", or be sets of up to 100.
The purpose of a short haiku is to be short, exasperated: can be said in one breath, expresses a moment's sponteneity. An

"intimate sharing of an ordinary moment".

Where all of life is summed up in those few seconds of words. Haiku is largely connected to Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, the goal of enlightenment... It has a very suggestive nature. D.T. Suzuki, an important person in the spread of haiku to the western world, explained the purpose of its ambiguity:

"When something is too fully expressed, there's no room for suggestion."

One of the original haiku writers was a painter, seen clearly in his ways of purposefully arranging scenes in words.
In Japanese, the original language of haiku, the 7-5-7 syllabic pattern is comparable to rhyme in the English language. Some writers have translated Japanese haiku into English by discarding the 7-5-7 pattern and illustrating the idea through rhyme instead.

Many contemporary poets have tried their hand at writing haiku; however, many of them do so in a largely uninformed manner, straying from the highly nuanced and complex nature of the art of haiku. In order to be effective, I see, it's important to become familiar with at least some of the history and prose of haikus, and try to understand its power in complexity.

I've checked out a book from Jack Kerouac, the "On the Road" author I loved and learned while haiku researching was a major Beat haiku artist at the head of the "haiku movement" that hit full-on in the early 60s. I like the take he took on haiku, making it his own, taking advantage of its spontaneous nature that implied depth within a perfect simplicity. He tossed out the 7-5-7 syllable format, saying western haiku didn't need it, just three lines that "say a great deal". I find that most of the haikus I fumbled through seemed to be overly symbolistic, esoteric... like they were trying too hard, and were far too vague. Kerouac's haikus are beautifully simple and convey a universal feeling, free of the triteness my cynicism seems to pick out easily in many other haiku. He said specifically that haiku ought to be:
"Very simple, and free of all poetic trickery."

Here are some of my favorites:

Useless, useless,
the heavy rain
Driving into the sea.

Missing a kick
at the icebox door
It closed anyway.

Evening coming --
the office girl
Unloosing her scarf.

Some other ones I found online:

The bottoms of my shoes
are clean
from walking in the rain.

Glow worm
sleeping on this flower -
your light's on.

Snap your finger
stop the world -
rain falls harder.

All day long
wearing a hat
that wasn't on my head.

Progress Report: Light and Shadow

ASSIGNMENT 1 : Light & Shadow

Create a 90 second, in-camera edited, silent B/W experimental study of "light and shadow." Must feature an experimental optical in-camera effect such as camera obscura, heat distortion, split-screen using mirrors, glass mattes, etc. 12 day project completion cycle.

This assignment should be interesting, to say the least. Its completely basic, eliminating sound, color, or even a necessary storyline - but the optical effect is kind of throwing me off.

To brainstorm I began by looking through my entire house for any objects that were reflective, refractive, or translucent. I kept my eye out for items in particular that had interesting textures, had concave and convex shaping, or were multi-faceted and complex. This yielded a whole variety of objects: glass bowls, cups and jars, steel pots and pans, spoons, knives, glass cooking pans, CDs, cd cases, a disposable paint tray, mirrors, water bottles, jewlery, a sequin pillow, wax paper, and seran wrap. I also scrounged up light sources: a swivel lamp, a flashlight, a lighter, or bulbs installed around the house. Then I experimented with the different objects and lighting, seeing what sort of reflections I was able to make, what kind of light patterns, or how I could distort the overall image. I didn't have a video camera at the time, but wanted to see the product through a camera lens, documented in a way I could publish online, so I took still photos of the creations. Here are some of the more interesting of the images I came up with:



This came from holding up the disposable paint tray (which was translucent, and had a bubbly texture) in front of a fluorescent light bulb, moving the tray back and forth, slowing down the shutter speed, and capturing motion in the picture. The next few are from the same technique, using different motion patterns.









I also used the video recording function on my camera for this one; I can't post it on here unfortunately, but it looked aweome, like there was electricity sparking and circling all around the lightbulb.



This is the moving reflection of the bottom of a frying pan.



I filled up a glass pan with water and got some pretty neat effects (above). When I shot from underneath the pan looking up, I got some of the coolest distortion I've seen yet (below).




It's unfortunate that I can't post the videos I recorded on here, because those ended up being fascinating; one I took was of a moving light refracting off a crystal doorknob, another was the world through the same water-filled pan as the last picture, but you could see the rippling and various distorting as the water moved in front of the scene.

Other ideas I want to explore:
Using tin foil. Placing the video camera on a tripod, setting up a piece of glass in front of it, and tracing objects within the scene with black paint to give a simultaneous 2-D and 3-D feel. Using multiple mirrors to reflect an image several times within the shot.

Using distortion through water was one of the most promising finds I discovered from this experimenting. I want to see how I can incorporate the interesting light patterns and motions I created with a watery-distorted effect.

Next step: renting cameras for Thursday and Monday.