BATHOLOGUE

(A Film Project for the Internet)

Initial Sketch

House of Water/Bathologue is a short film recounting a series of events -- some which have already taken place, others which have yet to take place -- in an ancient body of water. These events, to a certain extent autonomous, are linked by messages passed from one event to another. Over time (and repeated viewings) the pool is recognised as uncanny network of causes and effects. The total effect is labyrinthine and self-reflexive. The viewer/camera (i-technology) plays the role of the many-headed hydra, sometimes as witness, sometimes as causal agent.

"Though the senses were... deadened, not so the mind; its activity seemed to be invigorated, in a ratio which defies all description, for thought rose above thought with a rapidity of succession that is not only indescribable, but probably inconceivable by any one who has not himself been in a similar situation. "The course of those thoughts I can even now in a great measure retrace... a thousand other circumstances minutely associated with home, were the first series of reflections that occurred. They took then a wider range -- our last cruise -- a former voyage, a shipwreck -- my school -- the progress I had made there, and the time I had misspent -- and even all my boyish pursuits and adventures. "Thus, travelling backwards, every past incident of my life seemed to glance across my recollection in retrograde succession; not, however, in mere outline, as here stated, but the picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature. In short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by some reflection on its cause or its consequences." (Sir Francis Beaufort describing his narrowly escaped drowning in Portsmouth Harbour in 1795)

House of Water is a cooperation between Rogério Lira and Paul Perry. Following preliminary dicussions with Ingrid Walschots we are now investigating the possibilities (and limitations) of Be Here's 360 degree TotalView technology.

A detailed budget and planning overview should follow.

Paul Perry uses his projects and sculptures to explore basic existential questions of identity, persistence, difference. As such, he's more interested in creating situations and acts than signs or meanings. He believes, to paraphrase the American poet Archibald MacLeish, that an piece of art, 'should not mean, but be.'

Recent work includes the development of a new constitution for the City of Amsterdam (Amsterdam 2.0), the design of a small rock garden featuring a sub-critical nuclear reactor (Nuclear Garden), the creation of an immortal man/mouse hybrid at the University of Maastricht (Good and Evil on the Long Voyage) and two films about his own near death (1000 Deaths: Sortie 1 and 1000 Deaths: Sortie 2).

(Exhibition list Paul Perry)

Rogério Lira is a graphic/interaction designer with a background in television and video and works in both applied and autonomous projects. He has a fascination for swimming pools and is currently researching on links between water in the public space, the body and the work of late Brazilian artist Lygia Clark.

(Project overview Rogério Lira)

Glossary

recounting

(Récit) Who is the narrator? Can there be more than one? Has this narrator actually been a witness to the events described? Is there a way to loop his/her story back?

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