BIRD

In Conversation
Releasing a new work is always a tense process,
the transference from private to public domain,
an inherently stressful one. But sometimes this
gets mediated in surprising ways.

In Ulrike Mothes, film maker and PHD

scholar from the Bauhaus University,
Germany, currently Artist in Residence at the
Srishti School of Design, Bangalore, I found a
deeply receptive audience and an insightful
scholar, who could engage with my work at
many levels, including the theoretical concerns
that underlie all artistic practice today.

This is very much a time I believe, of new

conceptualizations as we interrogate
all the rules of articulation afresh. Both as
artists and as audience.

It is in this spirit that I reprint here our 3 hour

conversation almost in entirety and with
minimal editing, to retain the freewheeling
nature of our discussion.

It is not offered as an introduction but as a

response, one possible overture towards forging
that magical link all of us dream of, between the
artist and the sahrday.

I hope it may inspire many more.

Soudhamini
Chennai, April 2010.
Ulrike : Did you set up the lights in the
film ?
Soudhamini : No. It’s stage lighting.
Whatever I wanted to shoot in natural
light, I shot the next morning.
U : It was beautiful and what I felt was,
the lights were pretty warm on the dancer,
and the landscapes were often pretty cold.
There was a clear distinction between the
two.
S : Yes.
U : I was also wondering about your
concept of using landscapes at a
commentary level .. Would you look at it
as a visual sort of annotation?
S : That’s interesting but I didn’t think of
it vis-à-vis that word …
U : Ok, perhaps we should begin with
your process first. How your interest in
this play, or in theatre in general began.
S : Well, my first interest in theatre lay in
finding out what an actor can do. And
what only an actor can do. That nothing
else (no other element of film) can do.
Because I’m coming from documentary …
Now, theatre is a place where the actor is
everything, you know. And I can never
give him that much space in film. He’s
never going to be the only element for me.
So when I was watching the play, I liked
very much the sense of performance
energy. I didn’t think it was anti-film.
But I missed landscape a hell of a lot.
I feel in film I can say the same thing that
the actor is saying, through landscape. The
mother for instance, I remember right from
the beginning, was always about trees for
me. The nurturing element … like the tree
that gives shade
U : And roots also.
S : Ya, right. So for me it was somehow
parallel … the actor and the landscape …
and if parallel is annotative... then yes.
U : Well I guess part of the question
would also be how far would your
commentary refer to the narrative quality
of the play, how far it would be the visual
appearance of the actor, because you are
de-fragmenting the play, right?
S : Right … that’s a good question. It
cannot be fixed, I think. Like the steps, are
pure metaphor. But that’s the only time I
think it’s that way because it’s about rising,
which the actor also does. But for the rest -
it’s mostly visual. Even the tree is more
within the image register than the
narrative. Or the grass at the base of the
tree, in its softness and its shape, reminds
me of a lap … So yes, it’s about the visual,
and then idea.
U : Ya. The steps were also a break from
what you had used before. Very strictly
framed. Very clear. There was no camera
movement either. Very restrained.
Following the sort of long observational
shot. And then with the steps, the camera
suddenly became a character on its own. It
started to have a will. And I think this was
also if I remember right, pretty much the
point when you would move into the shots
of the sculptures. So it was the transition,
right.
S : Right. Also that’s the shot after which
the performer becomes full frame.
U : Yes.
S : And I think the thing about restraint
is that you let them really play out their
narrative before you move in to what you
need to say. That you listen first and then
speak. Sort of. In an interactive work like
this. Even the sculptures, it’s not there in
the play, but it is in response to the play.
It’s not just my thing. It’s really about
watching and responding. That’s what this
exercise is about. And somewhere for me it
was important to take this minimal
interventionist stance.
At the same time, there is a lot of the play
that I have left out. A hell of a lot. And the
little that I have taken, I have stretched. So
it’s in these ways that my intervention
happens. And the cue for this came to me
from Bird. That it is able to select. Just the
details that it wants …
Ulrike : How dominant was the bird in
the play? Was it something you shaped
out from the material?
S : In the play the bird is only mentioned
in the Drona sequence, and as a story right
in the end. You see, the playwright is
herself picking up narrative threads from
the Mahabharata and re-working them.
For what she wants to say. And for me
what is interesting here is, that I could use
so much of her material and tell a different
story. This is clearly not the story she
wanted to tell … but in order to make a
shift, it’s not like I had to bring in another
actor or character ... I had to do very little
in fact, to tell another story …
I actually think that it’s a kind of
layering. I’m sure there are terms for it in
Installation. It’s about how you re-use
material. It’s easier to identify when it is
physical material. But when you’re re-
using narrative material, it’s more difficult
to say how the layering is happening ..
U : Was it like foreground and
background maybe that you picked up
even a minor character and fore grounded
it?
Soudhamini : Maybe. But actually what
was background, I dropped. I just dealt
with what was important for me. And then
I tried to create another context for it. I
worked more with the idea of figure and
ground actually because of the landscape.
In film I am much freer in the way I shoot
landscape. But here there was much
greater restraint because it is more …
Indexical. It is indexical of the action and
it is also indexical of space. It’s not space
itself.
U : So basically you are bringing two
indices together. The stylization of the
performance is indexical in itself and you
are kind of taking it outside the context of
the story also, to look more at the gesture
as such, and then well, juxtapose it or
make it communicate with, your
understanding of indices coming from an
imagery of landscape.
S : Right. And I think now it makes me
relate to space – landscape - also in a freer
way. Rather than in the default way you
shoot in film. Because we in a sense take
landscape for granted. You may still
choose the right time to shoot etc. but you
take the whole 3 dimensionality of it for
granted. By not allowing myself that here
… it’s like looking at the function of
landscape afresh …
U : Most of the landscape is in long shot.
Why is that so?
S : I think for me what is useful about
landscape as an element in film, is a sense
of space, rather than detail.
Of course I also knew when I went to shoot
the landscape that the character was
mostly in close up. I knew that already. So
it could have been for that reason, to use
along with and still distinguish from. But
generally speaking, space is exciting
because it is full of possibilities, which is
what makes it illimitable. Within which the
self is, in my mind, a point of hi-
definition. And one moves like that in the
world. And sometimes one finds such
points of hi-definition within the world
also. And then you can take close ups!
U : Which then also relates to the idea of
the Bird which can zoom in to detail.
S : Yes. Absolutely. And at the same
time the Bird’s eye view creates a certain
sense of detachment …
U : How does working with theatre
influence your understanding of the time
based medium you are yourself working
with?
S : Well, I’m working here with gaps.
That’s my real time unit. Again it’s in
response. For they work a lot with beat.
While I like a free float. So in the black, for
instance, I’m not responding to beat. And
in the editing, before the moon’s reflection,
for instance, the effort becomes to see, how
much can I stretch the black. How long
can I stay … and that was also Bird then.
In free flight … I can’t see anything. I don’t
know where I’m going. But I’m not going
to fall … It’s outside both time and space
in a way.
Ulrike : One thing I also felt was, the
black was not only giving us breathing
time, but I thought they were also the
space to re-compose images, because a lot
of the images from the performance were
almost like cut out … the character was
extremely isolated. Sometimes even the
floor was cut off. So if you didn’t have that
landscape you wouldn’t know how far that
space and that frame would reach. Why
were you framing him that way?
Soudhamini : Well I think it was the
dynamics of his being a solo performer.
With no props even. Stripped to the core
and lit in a way to almost sculpt him. That
was the link also to using sculpture later.
And then I was using my lens in a very
particular way. I mean I discovered
diagonals only when I shot this. How
powerful a diagonal could be. Because
otherwise one associates this kind of strict
composition with someone like Eisenstein.
Which I actually hate. Because I find it too
stark. Almost moral. About right and
wrong and good and bad and you know
…. but here you work with a diagonal but
it moves, almost swings, and this brings
in a sense of play rather than fixed
positions.
And the diagonal was also important
because it opened out foreground space for
me. You think you’re very close to the
actor and then he puts out a hand and you
realize it’s only an illusion of the lens. He’s
not really all that close actually. And this
space, opening out where you least
expected it – this is the spatial gap.
U : Why did you choose to keep the two
screens in the same frame rather than as
separate projections.
S : Well, of course this ensures ease of
projection, and a certain continuity with
the film tradition, incorporating something
new - from Installation - into it. But for me
it was also that otherwise the black would
get dispersed. Here the black is constant.
It’s not a transit space. It’s the ground
itself. And the positioning of the two
screens was always supposed to be one in
front of another but both visible from one
stationary viewing position. And that’s
how I placed it within the single frame.
And then realized it also resembled the
wings of a bird. As index again.
U : What was very beautiful was to see
was how you consequently moved into full
frame. And that was very thoughtful play
with this fragmented screen. To bring it all
together and also to use that entire space.
It had that idea of linearity and causality
and in that way I see there is a definite
dramatic quality or high point it has
reached. A certain orchestration. And it’s
interesting because it happens only in the
very end. Because you know, you go with
it in the beginning, it’s unconventional, it’s
surprising all this space, you try to
understand it, after a while you get used to
it and you say it’s the concept. Then once
again you break it …
S : Just incidentally, that’s the first shot in
the play.
U : Which one ?
S : The full frame . And for me even
when I watched it I thought you cannot – I
cannot, that is - begin from here, you have
to reach here.
U : This is very much in the oral
tradition, I think, of passing on stories.
That there is a story that has been narrated
by your theatre choreographer. And then
you narrate it at the next level. And she
herself is picking up only a fragment from
the Mahabharata. And you’re picking up a
fragment from her work. And each time
you are relating not just to the original but
to the interpretations also.
S : Which brings us back to the idea of
annotation … Yes.
Now, one of the things I’d like you to
think about is the aspects of Installation in
this film. One, at the level of two screens.
Then the idea of using the documentation
of the play as if it were found footage …
But the thing is, my film sensibility, and
the only sort of image making I can do,
renders the material very loaded I feel. For
me to actually free it from its context
becomes difficult. In fact there is this great
need I felt to remain true to the original
context … even when freeing it . Do you
see that as a problem? Because I find that
a lot of people who just work with video,
who are not so conscious about the image
making process, are actually freer in
drawing work out of its context.
Ulrike : I think its once again a question
of layering. I think what you do is, you are
extremely reduced with your visual
language and the way you operate with
your material, and you play within that …
so in a way how you introduce found
material, starting off in a more
documentary style, and then moving into
an observational mode, and then you free
the character more and more, gradually
taking him out of this play and play
instead with the indexical relevance of his
movements, and of his gestures. And it
seems absolutely fair and correct or
whatever, to start with the notion of a
certain genre, but then transforms it into
something else .. Meanwhile similar
things are happening at the other level.
With your second screen and the material
you create afresh. That you use it at an
annotation or commentary level, as
extension - extension is actually the right
word - you bring it in pretty late, so there
is already some understanding of what is
going on in the narrative … and then
sound is also quite important I thought.
And the sound transferring from this
frame to this one, so it would move away
from the commentary and be overflowing
into a more liberating sort of thing …
S : Yes, the thing about the sound was
also, by keeping the two screens together,
there was this possibility of a shared
sound, and then it was like a circuit.
U : Ya.
S : Because some structures are really
claustrophobic for me. It’s not exactly that
the character bends back and there’s space
behind. In fact I’ve tried consciously to
have him bend forward and it would still
open up a space behind. So it’s never real
space. But a current can pass between the
two. And a circuit is thus somewhat
different from a loop …
U : In the way that a circuit would initiate
certain impulses but it would allow you to
break out of it ?
S : Well, the direction is not fixed. And
which is going to trigger off the current is
flexible, you know. The important thing is
that there’s a sort of engagement between
two poles. While a loop somehow seems to
have no beginning, and no end. The
vicious circle business.
U : No, a circle has a centre. A loop
doesn’t.
S : Right.
U : You said when you started to shoot
you were going to make a film and the
decision to make it an Installation - or a
film informed by Installation - came much
later – after viewing the material.
Soudhamini : Yes very much so.
Because I think even in the play the actor
has been mounted. In a particular way.
And then I had instinctively accentuated
that in the way I composed and shot him.
Working with the human form in this
fashion I had to engage with Installation
aesthetics. Even though they’re depriving
themselves of space, even then they’re
working spatially. The actor’s body is their
prime space.
U : Yes. And though it’s being projected
from a single projector I don’t know
whether I would call your work a film or
whether it would be a single or double
screen Installation. Because it unfolds like
a film. But there are two separate images
and we still don’t know how to read that
together very well. It is a kind of spatial
montage happening. I think we’re fairly
used to the linear montage and reading
that as a text, and being very quick with it,
but when there are various screens we can
extract information from …
S : Was there a time when you felt
strained watching two images ? Was
there a time when it jerked ?
Ulrike : … It didn’t jerk. I remember
the first time the second screen came up it
struck me how clearly defined it was.
While the other one was merging a lot
with the background . So aesthetically I
suddenly became aware of the fact that it is
a split screen. Which was not that
dominant before …
S : That’s true, now that you mention it.
With the first screen, I always wanted that
ambiguity about the limits of that frame
while with the second one, I was clearer
that it was only that frame. I never tried to
blur that with the rest. It’s really true.
U : And you also stay more with the
lower right frame, so that becomes the
main mode and then that becomes blown
up in the end.
S : Because most of the time the actor is in
that screen. And again this is linked for me
with the minimal intervention paradigm.
It’s only whenever there is a call that I
come in.
U : How would you describe this call or
this impulse that you would respond to?
S : Association, I think … And the
association is sort of lateral. It’s not linear. I
tried during editing to just alternate the
two screens on a single linear timeline.
Like you do in regular film. But it didn’t
work. I wanted to see both at the same
time.
U : I also wonder, talking about the
spatial construction, if the blacks come
perfectly in projection - outside the larger
frame I mean - then they may still look
like two independent screens rather than a
split screen – or at least there may be
greater ambiguity – the whole blurring
between one screen and two screen may
change entirely .
S : Well, when I’m projecting in a gallery
I am indeed projecting on the wall. So
there is no screen. And no outer frame.
U : Then it will just blend with the room.
S : Yes. Hopefully! Even in a cinema
hall. Or a black box. For I do see the work
as a multi-platform one and even cinema
for me is an immersive space. And a very
complex one at that.
On the other hand, I think the idea of
alienation, in the Brechtian sense, has to
change today. It is not possible to lose
ourselves in a work anymore. There’s just
too much media awareness. So we have to
be simultaneously involved and detached.
And in fact find oneself in experience.
So even in this work, I want to share
certain elements of the grammar of theatre,
film, and maybe Installation, certain
alphabets if you will, to initiate even the
lay viewer and draw them in, but after that
you have to suspend disbelief and become
part of the experience.
U : In that sense then would you say
Installation grammar and its aesthetics
helps more to create a sense of alienation
as an experience?
S : Yes perhaps. It’s a bit new and a bit
strange, the grammar is not yet set, so it
allows us to explore the language itself,
and somewhere create experience in a very
fresh way.
It’s very much the language of Now. Real
time. As is performance also.
U : Ya
S : But did you ever feel the landscape
became merely illustrative of the action?
Ulrike : No. I wouldn’t say illustrative. I
actually feel again the sound is quite
important. Especially when it began on
the landscape and then entered the space
of the dancer. And I would really look at it
from that side that the sound was an
addition and extension to the space of the
performance but not an illustration in that
way because it would not be such a literal
translation of the action.
It’s basically all very calm, natural spaces
– wind, water and things like that. It
would not really relate to a particular
action. Even your step shot was a sort of
symbolic representation, which had
nothing to do with, or not only to do with,
the real space that you shot, and it was
more about the position at which it occurs
and so on, and if you read it in that more
abstract way, then how can the abstract
become illustration?
S : Yes. Actually I’ve only really used
natural sound once, with the wind. Right
in the beginning. Not even water. And
then the bird sounds in the quarry. Very,
slight. Just to suggest that here landscape
is also habitat … For me, part of the
indexical is that the visual evokes sound,
and I think that’s very much the truth
about landscape in particular.
U : And silence too … It’s like an
invitation for focusing, right. Because
usually these are the places where you
want to contemplate. And that was also
your choice because you choose the calm,
reflective sort of landscapes. So that way it
was more the form, the different elements
of composition, and the balanced weight of
it – there was not even so much of it really.
S : Yes. Were there times when you felt
torn between the two screens, wondering
what you should see?
U : There might have been something
like that. I definitely did focus at some
points more on the left side or more on the
right side, and I think, actually now that
you ask the question, I watched the
landscapes more because these windows
would just pop up for a while and you
didn’t want to miss it, whereas
performance was there all the time, and
you could also continue to hear it even
when you didn’t look, so you end up
paying special attention to the landscapes.
Because of the rhythm and the frequency,
and they were often short … so you in fact
pay attention.
S : Yes, I could have held on longer but I
somehow wanted to remove it and go back
to black. Keep it discontinuous. This was a
way of modulating attention and also
because, as I said before that this was only
an index. It’s only the idea. Of that
landscape.
U : Do you think you would be interested
to add more landscapes or comments or
extensions later, working on it ?
S : No. If anything, I have removed from
what I first had. It was hugely important
for me that what I bring in to the existing
material was physically and materially
much less than the play itself. But it has to
become so precise and so necessary
somehow, that you don’t feel either that
it’s intruding, or the need for more.
Measure was everything.
U : So how does one measure that ?
S : It’s very instinctive I think … And
of course it helps that my real continuity
is neither the performance nor the
landscape even but the black …
U : Yes. Though for me I think it’s a
traveling between the different spaces.
The black is actually heightening the
colours, right. And similarly the black is
heightening the little action that you finally
show. So it’s really about creating precious
moments and forcing people to reflect in
between.
S : Which is also a kind of sculpting …
U : Yes …. I think the idea of
Installation liberates you from a lot of
pressure in terms of causality, and I think
that’s actually a big chance you’re taking,
to transform it into something else, into
something much more subjective,
reflective. Like film.
S : Yes. Absolutely. Which is why for me
it’s finally film rather than installation.
U : Do you want to talk also about how
you see film as being different from
theatre maybe ?
S : Well, I think theatre as far as I have
seen, materializes an idea. And therefore
presents it.
U : You mean in that way that it is
representational.
S : Yes, while for me film is conceptual. It
does not represent an idea it only evokes
it. You show aspects of Bird. As wings. As
a top angle shot. As black suggesting the
bird in free float. You represent aspects of
Bird, but you never actualize the whole. It
stays as idea.
U: So the difference lies in the perspective
and also in the engagement.
S : Yes. And this is very much to do with
film language. I think that’s the real shift
from body to image. In the sense that I’m
only creating it formally. This is Birds
narrative. It’s not a narrative about Bird.
Bird is not the content of my work.
And if I can work with an actor like that
… because seriously, there is way too
much focus on actors and characters and
human beings as a whole. I have to move
out of that. Find a greater ecological
balance if you will. And this includes
seeing the human as a visual element, and
just one element among the many in film.
So that an actor is as important, and only
as important, as a tree or a mountain or
just a wall of a house …
I’m not even saying this is true of film
intrinsically. It is only true of how I want
to work in film. Because if for instance I
want to talk of loneliness. Then it’s not like
I would place the character in a particular
spot with say a single tree.
U : Because you can often be lonely in a
place which is not lonely at all – in a
crowd, or in a relationship even.
S : Exactly. So instead of using the space
like a location I’m saying - he is lonely, this
is the space. And then it is interesting to
see what resonance gets set up between the
two. What music gets set up. It’s exactly
like creating an orchestra. Within one
particular phrase there will always be both
consonance and dissonance between two
or more instruments. Otherwise you
would not hear them individually. But
there is only one idea. It is that idea which
reconciles both.
And if you can construct the whole
narrative like that, then space too is not
physical at all. And it’s not there as context
for narrative. It’s not there because the
narrative asks for it but because the
language asks for it. I think that’s what
this separation has helped me see.