*You can watch Daniel & Clara’s film Notes from a Journey online and free of charge until July 19, 2021, on Kundurama, as part of “The Other Side of the Dream” selection.

British filmmakers Daniel and Clara say they have freed themselves from their nationalities, surnames and genders in order to work as “a single artist split into two human forms.” Judging by their working bases in the countryside of Portugal and England, Daniel and Clara’s focus clearly points toward a rural aesthetic. Even at their most direct, Daniel and Clara’s films avoid simple documentation. Even when it is an experience as ordinary as taking a walk by the sea, they convey its complexity.

Their latest feature, Notes from a Journey (2019), signals that it is an avant-garde horror film, if horror shot through with a light-hearted joy is possible. The directors use music, sound design, editing and color to show the limits of our perception and the potential for a perfect connection with nature. Shot during a two-week journey that ended at the stone circle of Avebury in the United Kingdom, the film never allows the viewer to settle. While the image of a forest is hidden behind bright red tones, the screen periodically becomes so white or so dark that we can see nothing at all. The film contains a few scenes in which we clearly see Daniel and Clara on their journey and recording sounds, but even these scenes seem uncanny in context. Although it is not linear, it is sound, more than image, that carries the film. It is an exciting continuation of Exteriors (2017), a series of short films that turned their tendency toward abstraction into something new and hard to pin down. Notes from a Journey is thrillingly beautiful, yet it also carries an uncanny sense of foreboding.

**This interview was conducted by email for Kinoscope, with Daniel and Clara giving written answers to questions from film critic Steve Erickson.

Revisiting (2019) seems to create an imaginary, immersive experience of nature. Yet at the same time, it keeps reminding the viewer that this experience reaches them through a medium. Along with people taking photographs of the stone circle, we also see printed pictures of it next to a computer. Why did you include these references?

Revisiting came about during our second visit to the Avebury stone circle in Wiltshire. Our first visit took place in 2017, during a two-week tour around England, and it resulted in our feature film Notes from a Journey. Avebury had a significant impact on our lives and our work; you could say it was one of the reasons we returned to England after living in Portugal for a few years. The experience was almost life-changing, and it has guided the focus of our creative practice ever since. So “Revisiting” is a film about returning to this place of personal significance, about looking at the site, and about trying to express the feeling of experiencing it.

We are very much interested in the nature of experience, and through our work we explore how we can express the experience of experiencing in all its complexity and layers, especially in relation to place. When we encounter a place, our experience of it is never one-dimensional. It is not a matter of observing objectively, as if we were some unfeeling mechanical device. What we describe as our experience is made up of complex and stimulating layers that exist both inside and outside.

There are the physical feelings and sensations caused by the temperature and the weather, and there are also the physical sensations within yourself: whether you are hungry or have just eaten, whether you are ill, in pain or suffering, or have any other bodily sensation. Your emotional state also colors how you respond to the place. All of this is blended together with the thoughts flowing through your mind and with the personal and cultural associations of the place. All of it becomes a dance in which inner and outer reality merge seamlessly. In our work, we explore ways of becoming more aware of all these dimensions of experience, and of how they contribute to our perception of what reality is.

This brings us to how image-making tools come into play. Since our experience of making a film about returning to Avebury centered on looking through cameras and on the act of image-making, we felt it was fitting to include this on screen as well.

How did you decide to shoot the Exteriors series on VHS, which gives it a smeared and imperfect quality?

Our interest lies in consciousness, and in particular in how art can help us to exist fully and consciously in the present moment, and we are aware that, by creating, it can allow us to exist within reality.

Especially when working with photographic images, we want to push them to a place where they stop being a document of something and become something in themselves. We hope to make work that involves a first-person encounter with the piece, work that is not only about its subject but is also an experience for the viewer. When watching an image filmed on VHS, one becomes aware of the recording device and all too aware of its limits as an accurate depiction of external reality. But it is also a hypnotically beautiful image. When you look at its shifting colors and flickering images, you are drawn into it. For us, it is a medium that expresses well our interest in an experience of dual reality.

The electronic music you place in the final minutes of EXT. WAVES (2017), and the way you cut the sound in parts of EXT. FIRE AT FAIRLIGHT GLEN (2017), push the films toward abstraction in a way that made me forget the real nature of what I was seeing. Did you ever plan to use live sound all the way through?

You are right that the sound choices in the films make them more abstract. The way we use sound is the same as the way we use images, as something that activates experience, while also being aware that it is an artifice. We are always amazed at how subtly sound can change the experience of an image; sound can overwhelm it and flatten it, and it can also bring it to life. In guiding the viewer through a film and in creating the reality of the experience, sound is even more powerful than image. It affects both our bodily perception and our instinctive sense of what reality is in a more elusive way.

We always shoot our films silent and edit image and sound separately. That way we have more control over how they interact. Sometimes the sound draws close to the image, appearing as if it were in sync with it, but at other times it can drift away from the image, as if there were several realities existing at the same time.

There is no composer credit on your films. Do you write your music yourselves?

Our early work was usually made in collaboration with musicians and sound artists, but since 2016 we have started making the sound and music ourselves. This was partly because we work faster and on more than one project at a time, and we like to jump between projects when inspiration strikes. So working with others was not very practical for us. We are not trained musicians, but we have developed some personal strategies for creating music; we usually work through sound and image rather than through music.

In Notes From a Journey, we can see images of the forest behind the red tinting. But I kept wondering whether the faint images I saw behind the white screen were optical illusions. Is this excess of light there to cover something up?

In Notes from a Journey we call these sequences color fields. They are faint shots of landscapes, barely visible within a digitally created flat field of bright red, blue, white or black. When we first created them, watching a full sequence in the darkness of our studio was a real shock to our eyes. The extreme color fields push our eyes to the limits of perception, where the image is so hard to see that we even doubt it is there. Are we questioning what we see on the screen, or the effect of the colored light on our eyes? Of course, it is the interweaving of both the stimuli and the physical mechanisms, and their subsequent translation by the brain. While watching these extreme color fields in the dark, one can become aware of how our eyes respond, and also of how the mind tries to make sense of what it sees, how even the slightest image gets filled in. Building a picture out of gaps and even the faintest of clues. What fascinates us is being both inside the experience and observing it at the same time.

The interplay between image and sound in Notes from a Journey is quite complex. How long did the editing take, and how much did you work on this aspect of the film?

Notes from a Journey was edited over two years, but most of that time was spent on other projects. We would have short marathons of work on it, but then we would need to step back. It took us a long time to find the right approach to the film. We like working on several projects at once. When we reach a standstill, we immediately move on to another project. We think this helps the flow of creativity more. Usually, when we return to a work in progress, we can more easily solve everything that had been troubling us before.

We edited and locked the film before starting work on the soundtrack. This part of the process usually develops more quickly for us. The sound and music of Notes From a Journey were created over a month-long process that used a kind of mix of field recordings along with sounds recorded at home. Lacking a sound studio, we built a sound booth by hanging blankets around a wardrobe, where we recorded all the effects and body sounds.

There are undertones of pantheism and a touch of hidden ritualism in your films. Do you follow any spiritual or religious belief system? If so, how much is this connected to your interest in rural spaces and in depicting nature?

We follow the creative spirit wherever it takes us. However, we are not followers of any external spiritual structure. In the early years of our collaboration, our focus was more on experience and insight. We spent a lot of time exploring the images in our dreams and the workings of the imagination, and incorporating them into our practice. More recently, this inward gaze has made room for more dialogue with the environments we find ourselves in, and for the need to look outward. So one of our eyes is open and looking outward, while the other is closed and looking inward. But we have always been strongly drawn to rural spaces, to the natural, to places where the human element is present but which somehow feel mysterious or outside of time. Where our dreams and the landscape intertwine, our fantasies can come true. For us, the landscape is not something that exists on its own; as we come face to face with it, we encounter what we project onto it. Responding to this encounter through image-making is to set out on a journey of the self and of perception.

You set up a website called Moving Image Artists in order to better explain and share both your own work and that of your peers, particularly experimental filmmakers working with images of nature. Before that, you published a magazine in which you wrote about cinema. Are you happy with the response Moving Image Artists has received?

MIA grew out of a need felt by ourselves and by our friends working with the moving image, artists making work that exists in the gap between the gallery and the cinema but does not fit into theoretical frameworks. When we returned to England in 2019, we were looking for a space where artists could come together, share their ideas and work openly and collaboratively, without expecting a hierarchical structure. No such space existed, so we had to create it. We launched the Moving Image Salon concept, a monthly gathering for artists working in experimental film, video art, in short, every kind of moving image. Every month we offer an open platform where our guests can share their work.

We are glad we decided to do it. We had no idea how popular it would become, and through it we have met many inspiring artists. Likewise, we are very happy that these artists have found it a useful and inspiring space for themselves. A community has begun to form through the collaborations that have emerged from the discussions and encounters. The online magazine serves as a platform for artists to write about their own work, share their research and processes, and interview other artists. We see it as a way of documenting and sharing what is happening now in contemporary moving image art.

During the current lockdown, the only way people have been able to see your work has been on home monitors, which are usually quite small computer screens. I watched it on my laptop. Given that you often play with the limits of darkness and our perception, how do you think the experience of seeing your work this way works? Have you had the chance to present Notes From a Journey theatrically?

So far, Notes from a Journey has been shown at the Rencontres Internationales in Paris, the Slow Film Festival in the UK, and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio. That is not enough for us, but we are very happy that we at least had that opportunity before the coronavirus pandemic hit the world and the lockdown began. Unfortunately, because of this, all of our upcoming screenings have been canceled, and we do not yet know when we will be able to return to a cinema. Notes from a Journey was not designed to be viewed on a screen such as a home monitor. But for now, we are happy that the film is featured on a platform like Kinoscope and that people can access it. We know the film offers a challenging experience for home viewing, but the lovely responses we have received have really surprised us, so even if it is watched under these conditions, that is wonderful for us. Yes, perhaps it will not be the same as the cinema experience, but it can still evolve into another kind of viewing experience. For the full effect, we recommend that viewers watch it in the dark with headphones or at a very high volume!

What is your latest project, and how far along is it?

We are spending the lockdown on Mersea Island, off the coast of Essex. During this time, we are working on a few projects that keep us sane, safe and creative. Some of these projects are partly a response to the situation we find ourselves in.

We have a mail art project. We have a series of letters that we send to friends, followers and a few strangers. We have been doing this for a year, but now that we find ourselves in great isolation, it has become a more important part of our work. With everything being online, finding ways to make a physical connection is very important to us. Material sent directly from our own hands to the audience is one such work. The act of sending letters carries this feeling as well.

We are also developing a new moving image installation, which is still in its early stages. The film is being shot on Mersea Island and is largely inspired by the hedgerows, thorns, thickets and empty paths that run through the fields and woods around the island. But we are only just beginning! You can follow its progress here: https://www.instagram.com/daniel_and_clara

***
Daniel & Clara’s film Notes from a Journey is showing on Kundurama until July 19.

 Moving Image Artists:
https://movingimageartists.co.uk/

 Daniel & Clara’s website: https://daniel-clara.co.uk/

 Header and inline images: “Notes from a Journey”, Daniel & Clara

Turkish translation: Nil Ege Özden

To read the original article, please click here.