Visual Alchemy - Writings

PREFACE / Lucy Wilkinson
Place of the First Time / Al Razutis

INTRODUCTION / Al Razutis / 1
THIS IS THE STORY / 10
MANIFESTO, CINEMA ART (MARCH 28, 1980) / 21
AUTOPSY OF THE PATRIARCH / 36
A LESSON HERE FOR IMPOSTORS AND SIMPLETONS / 41
THREE WRITINGS FROM FRAMEWORKS:
          'WHAT IS CINEMA NOW?' / 47
          'FORGOT ABOUT IT BEING "ART"' / 51
          'A PILGRIM FROM SPROCKET-LESS CYBERSPACE / 55
PO-MO COLLAGE: 'CANADA'S MEDIA ART HISTORY AND FALSE CLAIMS': HOW THE PO-MO ERA HAS BECOME CUT AND PASTE META-HISTORY / 65
PROPOSITIONS FOR THE DECONSTRUCTION OF CINE-STRUCTURALISM: AN ELIPTICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FILMS OF PETER ROSE. / 75
MANIFESTO: IMAGINATION VS MACWORLD / 91 APPENDIX / 99

Excerpts from Preface by Lucy Wilkinson

Born into a 'post-war dystopia' called 'post-war Germany of displaced people living in Displaced Person camps',   Al Razutis tells us a story: 'What culture there had been was destroyed in the rubble' and the post-war generation would rise and proclaim a new activism.

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This collection of writing, "Yes"   "You"   "Can"   was shaped by his avant-gardism and what William Wees called 'agonism', and it reveals how such activity and world-view becomes an art, a social force of protest, and a legacy for next generations.

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Al Razutis is an avant-garde filmmaker who has continued his work for fifty years;   he is a pioneer in holographic arts and now a critic, archivist and historian for this medium;   he is a video artist who took his interactive bio-feedback 'video art' devices on to the broadcast tv stage, and one of the early adopters of motion-picture art in web virtual reality.   It is fitting that his films are also in stereoscopic 3D and that he is working on new titles as well as holography.

This selection of writings reflect the broad range of his interests and abilities, written over decades of his migrations in media and reflecting his restless soul which can never be contained by any academic or single artistic discipline.   He joins a host of other revolutionary art authors who commented, created, delivered manifestos of the soul.

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These works are dedicated to the next generations that somehow will survive the present ones.

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PLACE OF THE FIRST TIME

VR (Vrml 2.0) World and poem reading by Al Razutis

Watch on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/Kr0OKNiwGXI

"Admittedly, it's a strange poem, one that includes a change of voice. That made it tough for me to read our loud properly. The VR world (created in 1999 for Nancy Paterson's "6 DOS The Library") gives it a kind of running 'illustration' of what some if this might mean.   Even in its (low polygon - web suitable) low-res rendering I love this poem and expression, and the 'ways of reading it'.   I'm glad it's in the book, right there in the beginning."   (Al Razutis, 2020)

Excerpts from Introduction

by Al Razutis

Before we were born, there was a culture, together we would appear as if for the first time at the moment of what we were told later was our birth.

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For all of us our life is first defined by personhood, which is why we don't define ourselves as pigs, which when socialized, becomes the adult we carry within us. So with this collection of essays and prose poems which plot a path that is set in motion before birth, then continuing in many migrations to different interests, sensibilities -- a restless immigrant spirit is what you have pacing the grounds here.

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Was there ever a time, outside of religion, and only for a short time that it was, when authority had no purpose after dissection had been performed on the operating table, an operating table that wasn't Lautremont's?

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The avant-garde and writing hardly make for a marriage that lasts, its half-life is short, and sometimes it's less than a bad one-night stand while reciting transgressions to someone who comes shouting "Oh, if only I could be Freud!".

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Does this resolve itself decades later? Not by a longshot. Does the author lose himself in sentimentality, go out with a whimper? Hardly.
We know now where we stand.

From 'THIS IS THE STORY' (for Shera)

RE:   "Can you tell me a story, in the language of your choice",

(Ventriloquism: 'a method of producing vocal sounds so that they seem to originate in a source other than the speaker') about What Is Your Favourite Year of the 20th Century, and why?)

At first I thought about a reply to your anecdote request in the form of ventriloquism 'in the style of C-Theory' (memes and all). A reply full of 'media delirium', Kroker-isms (their work is important!), references to Baudrillard, Virilio, hackers, promises, uselessness, 'global algorithms', and the 'hypermedia infobahn'. Full of ventriloquism and vanities.

"Or maybe you can tell me an anecdote about a day that was special to you or your family and that was also a special day in history. simple example, I have a friend who was born on the same day as the Moon Walk..."

But something has always 'bothered me' about 'remembering historical events' (dates/places/people/attachments/cries/whispers), or even 'that special day', when it exists beyond a HORIZON that I can be 'certain of'.

"Or hey, what rocks about the Y2K in your mind?? what worked? what didn't? anything really."

You can be anonymous or not, up to you, and length is completely up to you...

What rocks? Many things rock. But ONE of the troublesome memories, in a place beyond certainty, a 'place' beyond 'physical memory' is DRESDEN, and one of the dates in time is 13-15 February 1945. I wasn't born then.

NOW, to put an end to that 'trouble', to start this response, I pulled up the net and INFOSEEK, and typed in 'Dresden Bombing', and this is what I got:

2004 Update
March 23, 2004 2:20 PM
A remarkable letter from Marijonas Vilkelis:

"Came across the Dresden - Story for Shera - on the net again. Looked over a lot of your site and got inspired to send you some of my alchemy I received while visiting the mass grave in which much of the ash of the people of Dresden was buried. I'll cut the story as short as I can. As a Lithuanian you will probably dig it. Maybe it will have something for you regarding your own mother's saving premonition.

"I was once initiated with the 'hair of the dead and of the living' by an aboriginal elder from a N.W. Australian tribe. When an elder of this tribe dies, some hair is cut from him. Hair from a living elder is cut and weaved with it and joined to a long strand wound into a ball reaching back to the Dreamtime. A length of this hair was broken from the ball and wound around my wrist. I was told that I would remain wearing the hair even if it fell away, unless I removed it by an act of will. I have never done so, and now wear a cloth wristband so I do not forget I still wear the hair.

"In Dresden I found a taxi driver willing to take me to the grave for 50 bucks. I and my traveling partner were looking to take flowers, but something didn't fit. My eyes glanced across the wristband and I knew what to take to the sacred site. I tied a new band to my wrist. The driver walked us the last stage to the grave site, I walked alone onto the center of the grave while my companions stood on the edge. The ground was too frozen to dig so I dislodged a small rock. With a special knife I cut the old band from my wrist, placed it in the hole and buried it with the rock.

"I stood glancing for a moment. In front of me was a long 2 meter wall upon which an inscription described the atrocity. I began to hear a rushing sound like a distant wind. I looked into the trees, but there was no wind. As my mind noted there was no wind, it recognized the sound as the voices of thousands upon thousands of people. As soon as my mind noted voices, my (dead) mother's voice crystalized clearly above the rushing. This was the one and only time I had 'heard' her voice since she died more than 20 years earlier.

"'Premonitions work where the soul sees the future. Depending on the love affair the body has with the soul Determines how well it hears what the soul said And how well it is able to respond to it.

"On the morning of the bombing, I began to fall into doubt that we should leave. It was you inside me, who told me 'It's tonight.'

"As the last line entered my mind, my eyes were on the last line of the inscription: "Februar 13 1945". At my mother's time I was a 4.5 month fetus in her womb. From there I saw myself as a 50 year old standing on the ashes. My definition of soul for the above chanelling: the nexus of the ethereal and physicality. In other words, the point at which spirit and body are one.

"Marijonas Vilkelis

And in 2007, I found the way and the means to go 'Back to the Basics', to this old Europe and its ruins and the 'ghosts' wandering through them, from steel to light focused holographically:     http://www.alchemists.com/visual_alchemy/newton.html#basics

So the story would continue.

Yes, Dreamtime in the ruins (and a Story for Shera)     http://www.alchemists.com/visual_alchemy/newton.html#dreamtime

There is, of course, the view that only satisfies simple curiosity. Something to turn into art, but only if one dares.

"Tea Time!"

(Otherwise known as FAQ,   or Q&A,   or publisher   Lucy Wilkinson   & author Al Razutis   'have some tea leaves without divination, but with some sips included'.)

AR:   Whose idea was this book?

LW:   I reached out because I think your work is extremely important. (As I mention in more detail in the preface of the book) Your work has inspired a form of art that is uncompromisingly political.   It interrogates, without a fixation on style or self-importance as "the artist".   There is no apathy -- and that gave me a renewed enthusiasm to keep going through a difficult period in my life, where I felt like I was worthless as a writer, artist, and human being. To see art work that is not willing to compromise is of great value to how art can make an impact on the world. As Jonas Mekas writes: "...there are artworks being created [today] -- in paintings, music, poetry, cinema -- that will counteract all evil in the world, the bomb, the politicians, the newspapers."   Not through sentimentality or being "grateful", but by actively interrogating structures of corruption and oppression.   The idea for this book came about from these feelings.

LW:   How did you receive the idea for the book when I reached out?

AR:   My first impression was "Whoaa! Who is this publisher who wants to risk this?"   The risk I refer to is the risk of being outspoken and a contrarian to the usual causes in film culture and the arts.   That sign of courage and engaging risk to me was what caught my attention and interest.   It immediately provoked a feeling that I had found a kindred spirit. And from there our professional relationship just grew.

( ... sip ... )

AR:   Tell me about your specific decisions to include certain topics and essays, to include some poetry too.

LW:   I wanted to focus on essays that focused on the topic of institutions and corrupted structures.   These writings are all outspoken, some more than others.   I was going to use the word discrete then. I was going to say, 'some more discrete than others' but then I realized that's the anti-thesis of this book.   Corruption is often discrete and institutions play a part in that manipulation.   The opening piece   'This Is A Story' poetically and emotionally sets that straight.   From there, the writings unravel, and we start to understand the phoniness of the structures we are told to trust, the structures that say "YES"   "YOU"   "CAN",   the falsities of the institution.

AR:   Tell me about your ideas of how the book should look and how it should be created, in fact how it should be hand-made or produced.

LW:   All the books made at the press are handmade. "YES"   "YOU"   "CAN" was definitely a more ambitious project. It was the largest book we have made yet with 116 pages, and also it was hardback. So I needed to learn a lot of new skills to make sure the book was durable.   In terms of aesthetic style, I try not get hooked on this because I want the writer's style to come through more than the press'.   However, I also want people to be able to recognize it as a death of workers whilst building skyscrapers publication, so it's about maintaining a median.   As for the handmade element, I felt like the handmade could align with Al's post-modern culture critical writings.   As a bookbinder and a publisher, that's what also made me excited about working with Al's writing.

LW:   When I first read   'This Is A Story',   it really impacted me emotionally.   I can't actually tell you exactly why, but it was almost fear-like. The phrase that stood out to me the most in the piece was 'a place beyond certainty' and then the descriptions from Marijonas Vilkelis on the two carpet bombings in the distance, in the horizon.   It really made me feel a lot of fear for authority.   This society we live in terrifies me sometimes, and the media treat it as a sort of 'performance of the world', but 'This Is A Story', really made me feel the violence, fear, and the position of uncertainty.   What do you think about this?

AR:   There's a lot of metaphysics in that story.   My mother believed in premonitions and dreams that foretold the future. That's why they left Dresden the day before it was fire bombed for three days leaving the place burnt out with the dead.   Within that desire to leave is the desire to live, the determination of the immigrants and displaced people everywhere. This is what we share with the world community.   It gives me the chills too when it enters my life among the 'beauties'.

( ... sip ... )

LW:   I see your writing and poetry as a practice that runs alongside your filmmaking, like an ongoing critical account of your experiences.   When and why did you feel like it was necessary to start writing alongside your filmmaking?

AR:   'Someone has to say it' is what motivates my writing on film and culture.   In the beginning, when I published a 'underground film co-op catalogue' (in 1968, Vancouver) it was 'anything goes!', and anything and all was included, along with my own incomprehensible writings that passed for 'prose poetry'.   I realized soon after that we need 'champions' to defend out counter-culture and underground works. Champions to publicly represent us. There was no use in just waiting around, waiting for others to sing our songs for us, it was time to take up the cause of championing these works and our living culture.   Of course, when I became a 'proper academic' with university appointment, tenure, and 'duties' my writing in support of underground and experimental culture took a turn, including a change of language to that which I called 'academese', which comes with references, citations and better proof reading.   All this in one life is what I strive for, and I call it 'tell your stories, whatever the risk'.