Conjunct
JOHN STURGEON
Conjunct
©1976, B&W, 5:00 minutes, sound
This highly edited tape of carefully composed images speaks clearly to an inner world language of dream space and alchemical ritual. Sturgeon, as male principle, pours, boils, and mixes while enacting a centering diagram, metaphorically connecting various divergent elements to a central bowl with electric cables. From primitive animal urges for the female to a more consciously balanced union of the sexual energies of the self, there is a satisfying summing up of unlikely combinations, into penetrating symbols of a spiritual whole.
While made independently Shapes from the Bone Change (1975), the Two of Triangles (1975) and Conjunct (1976) can be viewed as a trilogy of works that outline and explore the identification of the anima, or female element, in the male psyche. It is about the rebirth of the unconscious.
Peter Goulds. L.A. Louver 1977
Conjunct
Reference Dream: November 24, 1974
Through a door, I see a dark-haired female figure standing with her husband and child, or perhaps children. She is calling for me to join her in the room with her family. As I move towards her, I become aware of the space I am in – which is this smallish trapezoidal space, shaped almost like a truncated pyramid, but on its side. This room, though well lit, feels much too small for me… and somehow not right.
As I go forward, entering the larger space with the family, this room feels very homey and contains a hearth like in old-fashioned kitchens. The woman (whom I feel I know) stands in the center of this rather square room, with her husband and children seated around a square table. She works over a round bowl on the table and her presence conveys a soft, warm and comforting sense as she beckons me to – come closer.
I am left wondering – is she mixing, cooking up, some further unity for me in this square space with a circular bowl – an enlarging or righting of my pyramidal shape?
JOHN STURGEON
My tapes germinate from experiences, visions and dreams; expanding in a gestation process where ideas are manipulated as notations, drawings and hieroglyphs. I view my work as poetic, as a synthesis of drawings, painting, and sculptural concerns, as well as sound and time compositions. The intent is to distill the creative process into concise metaphors, which convey the initial power and energy of the psychic experiences. The structure attempts to suspend the viewer's conscious act of intellectualization and place him in a state conducive to direct experience. Each video traces an expansion of my boundaries, electromagnetic diagrams of self, a continual probing and documenting with the video eye, the video ear, the whirling texture of being.
© John Sturgeon
Artist's Catalogue Statement
Southland Video Anthology, 1976
Long Beach Museum of Art
Conjunct
Date Completed: March 1976, Venice, California
Non-Verbal (with sound and image)
Copyright: John Sturgeon, ©1976
Length: 5:00 minutes, black/white, mono
Original Master Format: 1/2" Reel-to-Reel AV
Sub-Master: Beta Cam SP, DVCam NTSC
+Digital formats
CREDITS:
Artist / Performer: John Sturgeon
Camera, Sound & Edit: John Sturgeon
Addition Cast: Rosalinda Kolb and Susan Krentzman
Series Title: The Trilogy: the third of three tapes often shown as a set, including: Shapes from the Bone Change, The Two of Triangles and Conjunct.