Two epilogues
Playground
Relocating, re-inscription. Seen setting ink to rice paper, an activity he's carried on since the early 1970s, Torben Ulrich
has worked with a kind of trans-formative, sometimes alchemical approach based on
the indivisibility of awareness, breath and the elements (rather than continuing within the traditional colorations of winning and losing).
The process involves, for instance, rope and ball, dipped in ink: with the rope,
skipping an initial improvised pattern onto the paper
(under foot); then later, in a horizontal line, volleying the ball (rather than placing it) onto the same paper, “a sealing of play” in which play
itself remains open. Later still, some written lines are usually added:
In one of the works shown (and heard), they deal with alertness, balance and timing “finding their own”; in another, they follow the elemental facets
of a serve, its thrust of energy, into “... what comes.”
Turnings & Returnings
Single stroke, field of pitches. The final section documents the making and recording of the non-ambient sounds weaving through the film.
All come from a singular source: a ball meeting racquet strings, one hit, establishing (in pitch and music terms) a kind of tonic. In the computer, this
single stroke serves as a base for situating a field of multiple octaves. Within a middle range of this larger field, a scale with variant pitches is generated for
each of the film's five chapters. Through the throwing of dice, minute pitch variations are temporarily set into play in each chapter. Together, these
different notations set up a dynamic, as in Networks, between two sets of fives: the richly fluctuating and the somewhat stable, slightly more enduring.
The initial hit was made by Lars Ulrich — outdoors, to let the sound resonate. Lars then went into the studio, where his drum kit was connected,
by triggers, to the ten ensuing computerized pitches. From his improvisations, the entire additional soundscape was created.
* * *
Before The Wall is dedicated to Gil de Kermadec, whose extensive work in print, film and video — his way of framing technical detail
with poetic sensibility — has been a constant inspiration. Growing out of a promise, made soon fifteen years ago, to try for a sequel to his film
The Ball And The Wall, this film then attempts to take one more step back (from match/court/ball, etc.), and in that sense comes "before"
The Ball And The Wall (original title: La Balle Au Mur, Paris, 1988, co-edited with T.U.)
For many years Torben had wondered what the imprint of the ball would look like, and so when asked in 1971 to make a
painting of a blue elephant for a charity exhibition in Copenhagen, he played balls dipped in paint onto a canvas to make
In the lower right corner is a video screen re-playing the making of the painting.
Sounds (non-ambient) recorded at Bob Rock's Plantation Mixing and Recording, Maui, Hawaii.
Some of the transition sounds are those played by Lars' son Myles, who was then a year old.
Bob Rock and the dice
Reading of texts: Molly Martin
Camera work by Rick New, on mini - DV with a Sony VX-1000. Edited by Rick New and Torben Ulrich on a
Mac 9600 and G4 using Adobe After Effects. Output to tape using Apple Final Cut Pro