WEEPING LEAVES

Quite unexpectedly, you begin to weep leaves. My friend begins to weep leaves. Across the street, a group of merchants begins to weep leaves. My sister begins to weep leaves. A harpsichord is not involved in this weeping. My father begins to weep leaves. A teacher begins to weep leaves. A hummingbird provides consolation as the leaves are green and the hummingbird is also green. A farmer begins to weep leaves. A weaver begins to weep leaves, then a bookseller. Finally, I, too, begin to weep leaves, standing in the river up to my knees in water. One can, however, detect a relation between the slim almond shape of the leaves and the fact of their weeping with the slim sound of the harpsichord, each note made by a short quill against a string pulled tight. One night, I look into the harpsichordist’s eyes and see that she is imagining hummingbirds and the honey light over the desert where she had been born.

 

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I made this video using images generated from the Dall-e AI progam and then edited them in FinalCut. I'm glad to have another tool to use, even if my use is in the early stages of development. I'm fascinated how computers have been part of my artistic practice since the 1980s. Of course, I wrote the text on a computer, but I also wrote and recorded the music with software. The accompaniment to the spoken text was generated using an algorhithm translating a digital audio file of the voice into MIDI. Then I manipulated it with a variety of digital processors and chose appropriate timbres. Or course I recorded the voice and composed the solo piano part using a computer, but that's just as a utility and not using the algorithmic digital processing aspect which is more conceptually interesting to me. How we work in tandem with computers, particularly procedures which exist already in software. Piling up many different procedures in novel ways (and using them in ways that they likely weren't conceived for) creates rich and often surprising results and are part of the basic and invaluable tools of the contempary artist, whether visual artist, poet or musician, I think.