[spectre] Silence in the rooms. Interview with Skoltz Kolgen

[Redazione Digicult]

Skoltz Kolgen: Silence in the rooms

Article/Interview by Claudia D'Alonzo
Digimag 27 International / September 2007

http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=962

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The recent release of a wonderful DVD (presented during the Elektra Festival 
2007 in Montreal and now distributed worldwide) represents the newest 
chapter of Silent Room, a work by Canadian artists Skotz Kolgen, started in 
2003 and presented in different ways over the years, from video 
installations to AV live cinema.

Each one of these forms has been a different approach to re-think the 
original flux of audiovisual poetry, and to experiment various ways of 
narration. Moreover, the new DVD features a very stylish packaging, with a 
double inside content (audio cd and video dvd full of extras regarding the 
backstage of the work) and a three-language booklet: English, French 
and.Italian! - enriched by astonishing pictures.

"Ce ci n'est pas un film". Paraphrasing Magritte, Skotz Kolgen introduce the 
viewer/spectator through rooms that constitute the film-poem Silent Room. 
The conceptual game, built linking this work to the cinematic medium and 
denying it at the same time, resumes important aspects of the artwork: in 
between videomaking and filmaking, it highlights the connection between some 
features of experimental cinema and the latest developments of audiovisual 
language, from video art to livemedia performances.

Silent Room lies in the interstices between different cathegories of the 
audiovisual language. The film, the movie, are used by Skotz Kolgen to 
rethink one of the first fundamental characteristic of cinematographic 
language: the construction of a story. Each room is a ' tableau vivent', a 
core that forms, together with the others, a modular form of storytelling, a 
narration composed of disparate elements, compounded time after time in 
constantly different paths, created by the viewer moving through 
installations or DVD tracks, or through the remixing of live materials, 
mixing characters' identities on five screens. Each life and story is a 
lonely monad, characters don't show themselves, their stories are dumb, just 
joined by their separateness, by their enclosure in a state of being which 
is pure existence.

The similarity of their condition constitutes the link that helps find a 
common trace in the multiplicity: Silent Room is in fact a compound by 
element; nevertheless at the same time it is a poem, an organic work on 
loneliness, in which every room is a shade over the theme of alienation. 
Each character is surrounded uniquely by his own self, in a condition where 
the environment itself and the objects around become embodiments of the 
psyche.

Skotz Kolgen use the object in a surrealistic way, abandoning functionality 
and turning it into a symbol, a lexeme of a language deprived by words, 
useful to write "skies of silence" allowing the audience to feel the mental 
space in every room. The physical body of each character, too, becomes 
filter and manifestation of inner states. The alteration of the body talks 
is an organic externalization of existence's anomalies. At the same time 
each body is the metronome of a circular and claustrophobic time, by way of 
repeated loop gestures and meaningless rituals.

The Canadian artists describe, using close shots, details that mix 35-mm 
footage, digital video footage and photography, a time and space 
simultaneously product and cage of the same room, being both the 
psychological projection of the character. A visual approach that does not 
talk but lets itself be deformed, overwhelmed by the observed reality.

Claudia D'Alonzo: How was the concept of Silent Room born?

Skotz Kolgen: Honestly, Silent Room took shape gradually. First, we started 
with drawings, sketches on paper, without a clear intention; we took our 
time and relaxed, in the morning during coffee time. As a way to stretch our 
life rhythm and dedicate time to introspection.

We gave shape to human bodies with pencil and coal-chalk, emotive 
impressions, stretched forms, distorted as their inner state would have 
morphed their physical shape. Finally we met with a great number of concepts 
that, time after time, encouraged us to proceed. Some of the themes have 
collapsed, creating associations and most of Silent Room ones started to 
have their own profile.

Claudia D'Alonzo: How did you find the characters? Which is the meaning of 
the structure given by the rooms?

Skotz Kolgen: The discussion about our drawings lead us to imagine and 
extrapolate certain situations, locations, characters. We wanted to create 
audiovisual snapshots for each character in his private life, his own room. 
Following our intuitions, illustrate the moment when someone projects 
himself in his interior life due to seclusion. It slowly transforms until it 
becomes an extension of their own state of mind. The place they live becomes 
a shelter with no witnesses, where they can, without any external 
interference, develop an ever more one-way psychological behaviour. Walls 
become their limits, objects reflect their personality. As if the room were 
the extension of their interior self.

Starting from these themes, we have elaborated some mini flexible 
storyboards. These abstract portraits have inspired context, aesthetic 
environment and creative focus of each room. Once begun, it was immediately 
clear we weren't looking for a rigid and linear structure, rather helix 
constructions and temporal abstraction. This process is situated between the 
tableau vivant and poetry.

Claudia D'Alonzo: How did you make shootings, built up the set and how did 
you edit the footage?

Skotz Kolgen: Concerning the set, we improvised a studio inside an old 
clothing factory in Montreal . We locked ourselves up in the factory for 
more than a month. Every morning, we built up the set, we chose the personal 
props and at the end of the day, until night-time, we shot with the actor. 
We focused generally on one single room shooting per day.

First of all, we did a casting to find the actors. We didn't want 
profesionals, so we did casting in the streets and met people. It seemed 
more suitable for us to find peoplewho were naturally and physically similar 
to our characters. So, we especially concentrated on how spontaneous they 
were during the shootings. Regarding the objects, furniture, clothes, 
tapestries, we found many things in fleas markets and from old boutiques, 
second-hand shops and so on.

About the shootings, we wanted to film with many simultaneous optics and 
points of view. We built up some synchronized camera systems. At the same 
time, we wanted to mix and compare a digital style with a more organic one 
of 35mm footage.

Claudia D'Alonzo: What kind of link were you looking for between images and 
soundtrack? How did you work on sound?

Skotz Kolgen: There were many working methods on sound as many rooms we had. 
For some of them, we had already imagined a sound-base during the shootings. 
For others, the sound architecture was built up before editing and we 
developed software to link the movement of sound to assembling. In other 
rooms, like Usure du temps, the soundtrack was created in parallel with 
assembling, in a very intuitive way. Each sound track was tailored for each 
room, and all the sound sources were created by us

Claudia D'Alonzo: In some videos there are animals. Do they have a specific 
symbolic value? Is there a link between animals and bodies?

Skotz Kolgen: Honestly speaking, we didn't have any specific will in working 
with animals. They were present since we started drawing. So, putting 
togheter all our preliminary drawings, there were many animals. I think we 
were interested to the human/animal relationship, in its particular 
developments. But also in comparing the human and animal condition. There 
was probably the idea of pet animals, take to the extreme, and of 
progressive mimetism of animals and humans in an extended cohabitation 
condition

Claudia D'Alonzo: How do you use the original material for the Silent Room 
presentations (Dvd, installation, live set)?

Skotz Kolgen: The original idea was to project every chapter in the old 
hotel rooms in Argentina . Try to imagine the smell of these rooms, their 
faded walls and flower tapestries, the beds, the old objects.The audience 
would have chosen the floor and the room numbers. They would have sat down 
on Milka's or Rudolf's bed and they would have a projection of what the room 
had once been, surrounded by the character's private objects.

The idea was stimulating, but it seemed risky for us to approach contexts 
which allow this kind of distribution. So, we simplified the concept and we 
decided to make a linear version with all the tracks, in one whole sequence, 
to present the art piece within film festivals. In this version Silent Room 
was projected for more than 3 years. On the Dvd you can find this version, 
together with unreleased tracks which had been excluded from the festivals' 
version.

The Italian festival Transart in Bolzano gave us the chance to present 
Silent Room as an installation. We used some rooms in a barracks in a 
military camp. We prepared every room with some objects and animals which 
introduce elements of the rooms' intimate universe in the space. Each 
character was in the room via the video projection. The audience moved from 
one room to another through some corridors and could stay in the room as 
long as it wanted. . Fruition was so completely different for each 
spectator, depending on one's chosen path and rhythm.

In the performance finally, everything is much more intense, because we use 
5 projectors simultaneously. This allows us to compare together the 
identities of more characters. We opted for a surrounding sound system, so 
the emotional tonality is very dynamic.

Claudia D'Alonzo: Silent Room is a film-poem. It is an extremely poetic art 
piece, if we consider poetry like an impulse to a deep introspection, a 
reflection on individual and his existing condition. Do you think that 
poetry has a role inside digital art today?

Skotz Kolgen: Digital art is the use of the computer power to create 
artistic works, with or without poetry. Reconsidering poetry notion inside 
contemporary digital art, and organic addition inside digital processes, is 
fundamental for us.

www.skoltzkolgen.ca

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