Hyperrhiz 2
Loop/I Don't Fix A Word
Donna Kuhn
Citation: Kuhn, Donna. “Loop/I Don't Fix A Word.” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, no. 2, 2006. doi:10.20415/hyp/002.g03
Abstract: Two videos by Donna Kuhn: Loop and I Don't Fix A Word.
Loop
Abstract
Loop is my first loop video. There is something about the soothing nature of repetition I was drawn to. It was extracted from a longer video called Mini-Me which was an exploration of grief and the hope for transcendance through art I sought after the death of my twenty-year old son in a car accident last year. It is shot in black and white with a grainy film effect, stripped of an art slideshow, poetry onscreen and its' original soundtrack, which was replaced with sound effects. I have to keep moving, I have to keep dancing, even if it's only for a few seconds at a time, simple movement over and over again. Moving through unfathomable pain.
I Don't Fix A Word
Abstract
This video was based on a dream I had after watching the performance of my friend Jay Bloombeckers', called The Holy Holography of Kabbalistic Kloning. Jay was a worker's compensation attorney who was murdered by a disgruntled client in June. I watched in horror as the day of the funeral unfolded and I realized Jay was going to be buried next to my son. I decided I was going to take that dream poem and dance to it in honor of my close friend. I wanted it to be simple, just sound and dance and the poem read by the robots in my Mac computer, further altered in Garage Band. When I finished I felt I had found my video "voice," that I had been moving towards for more than two decades, with my interest in sound text poetry of the 80's resurfacing in speech and music sythesis. A vision I had which I could not name or even understand, coming out of anguish, combining all my competing restless art forms, to hopefully create beauty and healing. People say I am brave to do this but I don't feel necessity is brave. I was too scared to do nothing. I can't imagine what else I could've done.