Ceven’s Blog

Since January I’ve been working on a project whose intention is to be a metaphor fo creative and personal evolutions from one state to another during the period I was being naturalized from an American citizen into a fully fledged German-European. This project is called HINAUSGEHEN. The word is German for to go out or to be exposed. Über etwas hinausgehen means to transcend something. I chose to follow a 3-movement sonata form to narrate various metamorphoses. While making the first movement I was an American (Exposition), in the second I was stateless without any political affiliation (Development), and in the third I became a German citizen (Recapitulation).

.

..

The music and images are meant to reflect not only these ideas but to also give a personal retrospective. Movement 1 was made in a single studio session at the Geräuschkulisse with Miriam Siebenstädt. We worked together over several small studio projects during 2009. In this time I learned a great deal about collaboration, experimentation, music theory and improvisation. This movement was to be done within a couple takes and with no editing. It is pure and naked and highlights the creative relationship we’ve built. The second movement is an evolution into editing and arrangement. It becomes playful and bright, much like my time spent making Anderecast. It’s the state of learning and actively using what one learns. The third is fully planned and calculated. It is about growth and obtaining control over one’s creative power and to communicate directly with the viewer. HINAUSGEHEN begins from chaotic analogue sources and refines itself into a programmed electronic composition.

.
The visuals reflect various methods learned and experimented with over the last years, particularly in 2009. UNTER UNS KOLLEGEN (movement 1) in German means roughly: between us colleagues. Everything in this video is as improvised as the music and made in one session. The second movement IMP (short for improvisation) was an unfinished study project reimagined and rearranged into an entirely new composition. It is a conversation between me and the junction of creation. The third, WESEN in German means: being, character, entity, nature or creature. It is programmed to be intentional and self-aware.

.

..

HINAUSGEHEN serves as a catharsis. The first video I ever put together was in high school in 1990. Over the last twenty years I’ve gone through one creative endeavor after another with reasonable consistency and variable success. I found art school unsatisfying and after a year chose to take a different path. Because of this I am a formally (and technically) uneducated artist who has had to learn everything through trial and error. The last five years have been particularly productive and so many projects have been made that it’s impossible to account for how many. At the same time I’d been going through an adaption (and adoption) process between languages and cultures after walking completely blind into a country for which I had no previous desire to see. As well all has been learned through trial and error. To a certain extent learning also required unlearning. All boundaries have been pushed and old skins have broken open to reveal new ones. This project is the climactic end to one story and the foreword of another about to begin. The expulsion of old energy and ideas propels my transcension into a new form.

.

.

The video WESEN will be published this month, with it HINAUSGEHEN, the threepart audio visual composition, is completed. At this time, we will create a own USF-site for this project.