etudes

I'm Kasper. I've started this blog to have some initial place to collect and publish thoughts and ideas, which I hope will eventually manifest in actual works of experimental cinema. The motivation for me was the fact that I've been struggling finishing and sometimes even just returning to the same ideas or project. In this way, a lot of thoughts and intentions disappear into my notebook – either because of my laziness or unadmitted perfectionism. So, I'm using a blog in the process of my own practice, but I sincerely hope that these posts also could engage other people in discussions and reflections.

On finishing

To me, creation is also very much about finding a receiver and perhaps a community for something where it will resonate. I'm not strong enough to conduct these larger projects based alone on inner necessity. But at the same time, I find this strange, because the structure can be pretty minimal. I finished my master thesis in 9 months, where I had, maybe, 5-6 meetings with my supervisor. So not even a meeting pr. month, but the structure, a few deadlines and perhaps the expectation of a reader was enough to keep me going. I've been reflected on this – in the AI (or more precisely LLM) era – where models and algorithms are thought to be agents of feedback. Yet, how many times have I not written something with a specific person as a reader in my mind, imaging their reactions and building on their arguments and assumptions. It's a reductionist view, to me, to think that response or feedback can be given by machines, unless on the very automated subjects. Why? Because the (human?) receiver is anticipated in the process. The receiver provides a set of assumptions, expectations and even deadlines in the creation process, and so creativity is also always already a social act. Should I direct the criticism to works created by LLMs as well? Breathless cursors forming walls of text. I'll leave it at that. But I want to emphasize how communities have always played a big role in my process. When I first starting writing fiction as a teenager, my parents and grandfather were always reliable as readers. As I started performing both with poetry, poetry slam, noise and performance art, it was regularly based on being booked or applying, and THEN wondering what to do. This kind of deadlines is not very different from writing a report the night before it's handed in. It requires both courage to do to yourself, and a knowledge of your own skills and limitations. Only, it's perhaps bad for the kind of discipline that's required for something to grow that doesn't have a community (or a receiver) to get it. I hope I can get this sort of push in this format, both tapping into a stream of consciousness-like format that doesn't require for stuff to be perfect and well-planned, but that also allows some punk; and that I can invest some discipline in to maintain, hopefully as a resource grows. I can clean up the mess later.