Een jager-verzamelaar is een mens die zich in leven houdt door middel van de jacht en/of het verzamelen van eetbare dingen zoals bessen en dieren. Het jagen en verzamelen als overlevingsmethode is sinds de neolithische revolutie zo goed als overal vervangen door landbouw.
wikipedia

Madeline Gins, What the President Will Say and Do!, 1984

Madeline Gins, What the President Will Say and Do!, 1984

In this case a good idea which I have given you is to do the opposite of what I say in spite of yourself: please don’t touch the book and no kissing. Think of others before you think of yourself. Don’t think of your family and the danger they are in at every moment. This is not the place for that. Perhaps the best way you could help me now would be to disappear. Vanish. Don’t read the next paragraph on this page. Forget that you have ever seen this book. Scream for every word you will not see. Perceive nothing. Lose track of me. Kill me. And I hope that I am assured that you will not read between the lines.

Madeline Gins, WORD RAIN, 1977

A Madeline Gins Reader, Edited by Lucy Ivens
Siglio Press
Bought after reading this review.

I’ve often been asked if Chantal’s work was political. I think that’s obvious. Her films are political, not because they deal with political subjects, but because they set us in motion. They put us directly in relation with the world and ourselves. Chantal didn’t want to copy reality or represent it. She didn’t want to explain anything because explanations prevent questions. In her films, the present and visible resonate with the hidden and invisible. And these resonances, these shifts, open space for thought./

I don’t like explaining to a director what I’m trying to do because those words affect their perception. I prefer to avoid any preconceived idea, any reasoning that could arise in the director’s mind before discovering the combination of images. That’s why I don’t want the director to look at the timeline, the way so many do today. The important thing is what takes place on screen at the very moment when images and sounds appear. That’s where the film is./

I often hear editors say that they’re going to test or approve a version of the edit. You test a light bulb or a battery; you approve an invoice. A film is something you watch, listen to, experience, and question. Maybe I’m putting too much emphasis on their choice of words, but our diction says a lot about us and the time we live in./

Excerpts form an essay by Claire Atherton. A film editor who worked witj Chantal Akerman for thirty years.
You can read the essay in BOMB magazine.

‘Daar heb je een veelheid met tenminste drie dimensies: een astronomische, esthetische en politieke’

Dit onderstreepte ik in Dialogen van Gilles Deleuze en Claire Parnet. Omdat die drie dimensies ook in mijn werk voor komen, samen komen. Mijn werken is politiek maar niet op de manier van de gesubsidieerde kunst. Het politieke is niet eenvoudig benoembaar. Wel ervaarbaar als iemand zich er voor open stelt. En ik vermoed dat veel kunst politiek is zonder dat het er duidelijk in te herkennen valt. Een van de verschillen tussen kunst en pamflet?