about 'silent comes the nighttime (again)'

01.12.2011

In all the pieces for the Opiates projects it was my intention to explore the psyche of the songs’ characters without distracting from the rest of the stage show. Each piece was to have its own laws of physics, colour scheme and texture. It didn’t make sense to use purely natural backgrounds nor was it right to make programmed digital types of images dependant on mathematical forms. To be inside the mind of any of these characters is to be absorbed by memories, emotions and thoughts and the mind doesn’t work in a linear logic like a computer. We are asymmetrical tangential beings constantly making new connections and associations in the moment and that is best portrayed through abstraction.

It has taken several of years experimenting before coming to feel confident in creating an abstract visual language that communicates outside the realm of “op-art”. There needs to be enough realism that one doesn’t need to think about the fact that they are watching an abstraction. In Silent Comes the Nighttime (Again) it was necessary to think about the desire of the character and what that feels like, in this case a woman having insomnia. I regularly have problems either falling or staying asleep so that was where the concept began. The majority of the time people tend to dream in either black-and-white or monochrome. The woman lies in bed with her eyes closed waiting for this dream state. Thoughts become free-floating pulses in the darkness. 

One thing to bare in mind the whole time is that the videos are only meant to be one part of the experience. Standing in front of them is Billie and Roi. It's difficult for me to watch this video without wanting to see it partially projected onto Billie. Her presence is an extension to my overall concept just as the videos are an extension of her meanings, it's a symbiosis that makes the live shows that much more powerful to see.

Important is also how the abstraction intends to compliment the composition. Robert Solheim’s pieces for this project are very round and weightless and the final mixing has an almost glass-like texture, so one wants for the visuals to reflect off the surface into the eyes. I used footage from 2 previous videos (YOU WORK IT and EVER) and blended them with some images made by Jörn Hartmann into one layer slowed down considerably then desaturated it to about 10% colour and then it became its own emotional being weaving in and out of the other parts, and that perhaps the most important thing for an abstraction: it must follow the human algorhythm.