You drove your car to a wedding. It was May. You own a brown suit. You didn’t wear it. You wore the blue one. Hence, the pocketed window. Hence, the roaming breeze flowing through the car. The roughening and scattering of your coiffed hair. Fanned and winglike across the ridge of your forehead. I’d imagine lift, tilt. It was May and sunglasses were needed. You had passengers, all of whom, like yourself, were nearly members of the bridal party. But none of you were. A near miss (don’t make me say bullet, please).

You drive with the windows rolled into their pockets so as not to sweat through your suit. To this end, the trip was a success. In May, you drive your girlfriend to her sister’s wedding. Holding the line, you hair flutters as if you were drowning. It floats, reaching to a surface it nor you will break.

Branches, in May, hold their leaves not their birds. It mistook your window for air. Common, yes, but you were driving forty-miles per hour. It smashed its head on the door, just above the cleft window. Bloodless it fell to the blue nest of your lap.

It was sunny. A day that makes one glad to be alive. Almost, you reminded yourself, almost. On the roadside, so to the blessed ceremony at the blessed church with weeping people and their coughing gobs; in your blue suit, you scoop the dazed bird into the hollow of your hands. Give it air, take to air. Small fill in the large cave of your cupped hands, positioned as they have been waiting for something to be proffered into them. Not a flit or wingbeat. No recovery from the smashed head. On the side of the road, in your blue suit, you lobbed the bird to the sky. It bounced twice. Twice made it worse. More brutal. Farther away from portents and meaning. Once. Then, again.

Maybe it is good luck, a passenger said. There is no way it is good luck, your girlfriend said. It was, from what you tell me, the rarest event prior wedding. Alas, many pains are better than one.

NO, THANKS

I got a call from Keeley Gould one afternoon while I was living on Orchard St. in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She was producing a music video for LCD Soundsytem and Doug Aitken was the director. The three of us have worked together in the past. Doug’s treatment proposed mostly hand-held photography, and most of the scenes were either outside or in uncontrolled lighting environments. Normally this wouldn’t be such an issue, however, the subject was to be silhouetted entirely. Together we need to figure out how to make this work. Using a green screen costume designed by Built By Wendy  and  some green screen paint we were able to get a fairly decent key. With some great post work the video came out quite well.

LCD SOUND SYSTEM: SOMEONE GREAT MUSIC VIDEO

Directed by Doug Aitken

Technical Direction by Serge Kirsanov

STRANGE THINGS TRAILER.

Edited by: Eli Mavros – Elimavros.org

Music by: Andrew Hogge – Lovefingers.org

Produced by: Serge Kirsanov

What transpired at the fringes
and a restless finitude rusts
profane and radical [        ]

we are barbed and bored already
the calamity that is

the vertical horizon true to form
a gathering of tales least
to matter most
or an imaginary city’s fatalistic exposè on

[        ] that story

so that question

where is it going and where has it been?
variants of happenstance and deliberation
which is what we do
we give it a story we rattle a truth
that edges closer and closer to [        ]

that never happened

or it happened exactly like that
like we said it did
like we were there—our ears to the door
our eyes to the chink in the wall—the narrow escape
the eager climax

we saw [        ] and

we saw again

>

You’re not alone paper hats, accordions, several continents

tossed into your own mangled parabola wrangled with you

pinned beneath it–say uncle–it’s not any better

than the way it was before but you’re partial

to your muddled up anomalies

your hued way of making the same mistake over and over

the way you put your heart in it

your earnest belief in the can’t-put-my-finger-on-it-ness

of it all but simply by showing up you might be able to change >

the whole unraveling thing

the unnamable unavoidable it

spritus mundi’s

double helix widening between us all

Living in Los angeles we are constantly reminded how we are living in a man made landscape. Terraforming is a Los Angeles phenomenon. Various species of plant life and animal life have been imported. Our water is not our own. Without us, the natural environment is a barren dessert, practically lifeless. In addition to the “unnatural” nature that surrounds us, the remaining space has been claimed by a barrage of advertisements and cheap thrills.  This landscape being so malleable, the city has no concept of permanence and hence its history is as illusive as its present is ephemeral. It’s a city whose history is told by stories of the inhabitants who have helped mold it.  Most of its character lies in these stories. “If you lived here you’d be home by now” reclaims and rethinks that space.

We choose to decorate our city like we would decorate our home. Through its sculptural approach it changes one’s perception of the conventional space of a commercial billboard. By doing this it reclaims the space.  It also does this by presenting an image that is un-familiar to the L.A. cultural identity, much like its settlers brought in various wildlife from exotic lands. Intentionally we are presenting an imitation of a plaster cast deer head that mocks the idea of taxidermy. Although beautiful, there is no prize and no glory. Taxidermy is a celebration of a journey, of a hunt, and is an honoring of the kill. With “If you lived here, you’d be home by now” we honor the spirit of Los Angeles and embrace it’s constant nod to the future.

A common neurotransmission defined

as a promise [        ] on the cusp

of an orchestral negotiation

baroque as an eye or rococo, as if [        ]

someway or another we feel it

nimble and acrobatic, as if to say:

you’ve never been through this before

[        ] this watery hope this bad-weather landing

this white-knuckled sleep.

The ground rises to greet you. Sleep harder.

We want to be [        ] this human all the time.

This farewell and when.

This is the first “Job” I completed after Calarts. It was for an artist named Doug Aitken, whose significance at the time I was entirely unaware of. He became a part of my life, as a mentor, as a boss, as a director, and a friend. We met through his at the time assistant Daniel DeSure, who was charged with finding a designer, editor who could help them out with a project entitled ” NEW SKIN.” I remember having to throw my G4 into my hatchback and wheeling it over to Venice where the whole operation was being run out of Doug’s garage. I remember Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols was a neighbor ( supposedly, ) I also remember marijuana plants growing feverishly in the area neighborhood.

This is a collaboration that is currently under construction. Please come back soon!

Serge+Sara