ARCHIVIST
John Sturgeon
ARCHIVIST
cleaving among the houses
produced and directed by: John Sturgeon, 2010
19:42 program, 21:30 mins. credits, HD 720p:
5.1 Dolby surround (or stereo)
An experimental poetic work spun from a train-rush of collective imprints of war and idiosyncratic archiving as memory. Archivist’s multi-stream image collages scroll or overlap within the larger frame, as a poetic thread fuses with acoustic compositions. Arching from the collective to the personal – themes of war and sanctioned abuse move through touchstone-images of grizzly conflict to ancient texts. These images mix with more subterranean themes and finally trundle towards a meditation on personal cargo and mortality.
Archivist is as much about the act or urge of archiving as it is antiwar piece or memento mori. As the subtitle’s contrasting meanings for ‘cleaving’ suggest (adhering &/or splitting) our attempts to categorize often are inherently unstable, double edged and may become blindly useless.
Although not solely about a specific war, Archivist’s perspective attempts to approach the essence of war as a persistent expression of the human landscape. Also, it is about the act, or urge of collecting, archiving, recording or reframing of the record, which places context and creates narrative.
It features video sequences and digital photography shot on location in a Cold War Army barracks in southern Germany, library materials from 15th Century texts in a German archive, as well as photographs of the Civil War and unique WWII images. Also employed are video recordings of the Cicada infestation of 2004, off the air TV footage of the invasion of Iraq, a stone quarry in Italy as well as a cadaver lab.
The primary text for Archivist is coupled with audio compositions by Stephen Bradley and John Sturgeon. The standard video screens (4:3) at times are composed as tandem frames within the screen, as diptychs or triptychs, then at other times multiple moving frames of information scrolling or overlapping within the larger (16:9) HD frame.
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Video MASTER TEXT: John Sturgeon 2010
ARCHIVIST
cleaving among the houses
prologue:
There is a cleaving among the houses
the creation of mansions of abuse
built with family stone, itself
layer upon layer
in a history of folded things, laid away
embodied in the blood
settling in the dust
falling like time,
on the mass graves of our best.
Sacrifice the children
because we must...
that is how it is passed on!
generation after generation
in the circle of things –
Where these images dissolve -
what kind of history could exist?
Even as this library decays
an old inherited imperialism coils on
hidden - beyond the photographs
& further than the tug of roots.
Connections’ easy ether
twists and turns the knot -
takes a drunken turn towards contradiction -
admits its failure, with the grisly communication of war.
My friend asks:
Can’t you give a little hope for the future?
I say:
Eyes like buttonholes.
An odd confluence –
this dignity given to choice
Dwells within the ache -
cut between perception and love
Favors abuse –
with surgical implements
Insists on control -
courts the cataleptic
Sadism values Violence –
Violence fortifies the Moral Circle –
Power distorts Instinct –
Fear governs Rules –
Immorality infects Danger -
Condemned Atrocities
control the Social Order –
The Imperative of War punishes –
us & them - benefits the Elite –
We must eliminate the Moral Panic –
Now!
whisper chorus:
There is a cleaving among the houses
the creation of mansions of abuse
built with family stone, itself
layer upon layer
in a history of folded things, laid away
embodied in the blood
settling in the dust
falling like time,
on the mass graves of our best.
Sacrifice the children
because we must...
that is how it is passed on!
generation after generation
in the circle of things –
At the deepest levels of our torment
it may not be apparent which, or what -
Such is the obscurity of marriage
that binds abused and abuser,
lover and beloved
Reasons have their own way, you know,
of clinging round like jealous covers
intent on familiar repetition -
Smothering illumination from our theater's
invitation for grandeur
- or for fate
If finally, it comes with age,
the wound’s … slit –
opens, just enough to distinguish –
whose labor is woven in the fabric
Savor that design
Flames flicker in all our quivering souls -
Worlds transfix before the question of transition
Debate becomes our last meal -
prepared by others
dining alone
as -
The Bell’s toll
comes due.
final chorus – loop:
The deep, untended storm,
urgent at last, seizes the view
There -
hoisted in distress
tossed clouds,
flags-swollen into graves
from the bombing,
suddenly too near
An implosion of hope
on this continent, and others
which now mingles with our darker histories
coagulates transgressions,
Like an old sulk between neighbors
or, worse
foolish bravado
festered in blood -
still un-forgiven.
The earth,
This brief setting -
our table - meal and fearful glances
All our precious cargo
Whirls….
Archivist review - Carlton Davis
VIDEO:
Archivist
I am just stunned.
You see the future.
You sense it too.
The utter horror.
Only moments away.
The bow-shock of events about to unfold.
The scream of multitudes caught in the global cull.
I shiver. I weep.
A masterpiece. Truly.
Horrifying. Gorgeous. Magnificent.
Absolutely beautiful.
Michael Lyon