45301

Perceval Press 2003
hardcover
8,5 x 9,75 inches
94 pages
ISBN 0-9721436-3-7

Perceval Press: Abstract images, fragments and phrases from poems, notes, journals, words/thoughts remembered or imagined as they slip away, come together in 45301 to create a dense, thought-provoking photography book. Many of the photographs were shot during Mortensen's recent travels to Morocco, Cuba, and the northern plains of the United States, but could have been shot in your backyard. Depending on one's point of view, the imagery can be seen as either fighting with light or embracing it, holding time or forgetting it.

FACTS AND TIDBITS

 From: Viggo Mortensen talks about his new works Moviestar #104, Oct. 2003
MS: Jewel's latest album is called 0304, and it seems like these days titles with numbers are in style. Your album is called 45301, which is also numbers. What do you feel about it?
VIGGO: I had not heard of her album title until you mentioned it. 45301 is the number of a filmstrip that was used as a book cover for a book that couldn't find a better title.
MS: What is your motivation for making 45301? What is your favorite shot in it? What is the reason for choosing it? Is there any connection between each shot? Is each shot connected to each other?
VIGGO: Don't have a favourite. No reason for making the book. It just happened.

CONTENT:

COMMENTS:

JoannaP/EOS:
I remember back in the summer of 2003 at the House of Telcontar forum we were trying to find an explanation for the title. Of course a film roll number was a possibility, but we thought it could bear some deeper meaning. I'm not sure who found it first, anyway, someone found out that 45301 is a ZIP code for Alpha, Oklahoma, USA. Someone else tried another method: taking first numbers for letters one gets DEC 01, but it didn't make much sense either. Of course it was before we could read the Moviestar article quoted above...

Added Nov.06: Finally I found some snippets of the discussion at HoT from 2003. Sadly, it is all I was able to safe. The rest is gone, and with it the interesting discussion about that hard to define but visible link to the norse mythology.

I remember someone posted an observation (you can find some echoes of it in the quotes posted below) that there is a kind of very abstract face in the cover picture, a face looking at the reader with one eye. Someone else (bless you, unknown friend) connected it to the presence of the names Hugin and Munin on one of the inner pages, and presented a theory that the face is of Odin, the god who sacrificed his eye to be allowed to drink from the well of Wisdom, so he became alll knowing. HUGIN and MUNIN, what means Thought and Memory, were two ravens that flew around the world every day, and brought everything they saw and heard back to Odin. In a way it explains why the Title-Number of the book is reversed: it's the only way to make a cover out of it and let the face appear on the title. On the most pictures Odin's faceis portrayed with his left eye missing. Of course if the effect is a concious choice. (More about Odin on Wikipedia)

Of course it doesn't explain the presence and meaning of the number itself. There is also no explanation why the ravens' names are on the page with pictures called Still Point which most probably come from T.S Elliot's first part of Four Quarters: Burnt Norton.

EXCERPTS FROM THE DISCUSSION THREAD AT THE HOUSE OF TELCONTAR (R.I.P.) MESSAGE BOARD

J., Jan 23 2003
(...) Maybe it's not so much about art, this book. But than again, what is art. For me it's a book of visualised fragments of thoughts. In some way, these thoughts are catologued, in different parts of the books. But they are so open and inviting to all sorts of interpretations. That's what I like, it's an open book. It has certainly an end and a beginning, but where to begin and where to end, very much open to discussion, don't you think. I love the intermezzo. Something like it, I've never seen in terms of photography. The negative rolls. A beginning, and end, start or end from both ways. How to fill in our thought's. Some of them are already interpretated and filled. it has been exposed to light and seen the answers. Some have been exposed to light but missed catching a glimpse of anything, blank they are, and still open for learning. I see circles in them, as I see circles and small directions to circles all over the book. The film rol is a circle. the colors on the book cover can be interpretated to being the colors of the medicine wheel. Many of the photo's are presented in a circle. (...) Brings me to the thought that Viggo is embracing lots of cultures in this book, and surely one he has met on his path. The native american culture, for instance, widely displayed in this book, or his roots, think of the nordic saga's, The Hugin and Munin story, the story of the raven. Which shows up in many cultures, and mostly of stories from the early beginning, when life started, told in various ways in all cultures, but having all very many similarities. Also I believe in the book, there is some sort of a diary. There are too many personal words, not to believe that it is also partly about Viggo's life.

Susanne, Jul 31, 2003
(...) I for one always start from the back of it and others start from the beginning, so the more I think about it, it make sense. If there has been page numbers the book had already pointed out the direction "follow my numbers" now it don't.
And I too, do think the title as it is shown has a meaning. My thoughts are like this:
He stands in a world he wants us to "SEE" which consist of experiences, thoughts and messages shown to us in notes and images, (that place is the pages IN the book). We stand in our world which from his point of view is OUTSIDE the book. So the cover is the place were these two worlds meet for the first time and as the Title is in his world it must be seen reversed from our world. But he welcomes us to come inside and participate.
(...) This book, I believe, is to be seen as if forming a whole and it has a message in it about the world we live in and what world do we want in the future. I think it is very "political" in that sense. Are those images "I" see reality or are they a dream or a vision??
This has been "itching" me for the last couple of days. Well, the answer is hidden from me at the moment and that's why I think this book is so challenging. You can't stop thinking about it.

Jotan, Jul 31, 2003 11:32 am
(...) Yes, I think this is certainly at least part of what he is saying. In his previous works, as he has said, he felt he should not be making things to please others, the things he made and his poetry should please him and he shouldn't become too concerned if others did not appreciate them - and if others did enjoy them then that was good, this book seems to go past just sharing his thoughts and ideas - this book is trying to persuade. That is how I see it.

Jotan, Aug 01, 2003
(...) VM's previous books were more tentative, in a way ... he was still feeling his way. And as every artist should, the works were made for himself, but he was willing to share them to see if others appreciated them.
In '45301' we see a confident VM reaching out to persuade (well, I see it as a persuasive text), I think. This book certainly reflects his thinking about current affairs. He is aware that a lot of his audience has similar thoughts to his and this work speaks to them - I suppose not to persuade them as they are already persuaded - but to demonstrate his thought processes and perhaps to point out directions that he sees others might wish to take.

Hasemi, Jul 22, 2003
...This is my first impression for 45301. It's not so much an art as a memory/daily that comes from very basically, primitive and fundamental feeling=the inspiration. When you take the book in your hands, you'll find the title of the book is printed in reverse. Why is it printed in reverse? Don't you know similar feeling?...the reversed-character.....yes in the dream. In the dream, characters sometimes appear in reverse and images often have dimly outlines. So are they in 45301.
Just imagine you are in dream. As opening the book, then 45301 begins to have its own life. At first, everything has no form and look like meaningless shadows or light. From these Chaoses, some images begin to form and suddenly they start to flow like the light reflected on the surface of the river or landscape that you look from the window of a car. Images are passing your sight one after another but you can never catch them, they've gone before even you are conscious, because they are dream. In other words, you are in the dream.
Many characters overlap on passing images and then many dimly-warped images, shadows, many hands, slant horizons appeared in the pages. They look like having some massages, want to talk to you, but you can never catch them because they are a dream. Images and characters overwhelm you. You have no word, no idea...maybe not sure where or when you are. Much uneasiness, loneliness is there, but they are also so beautiful.
Have you ever experienced this kind of feeling?
One of the most excellent things is, I think, he did this "unconscious works" by his consciousness.
At the end of the book, there are two images of a closing door. Yes, at the end of the dream named 45301, the door of the dream closes....slowly....
Are you going to return to your real world or step into next dream?

EXCERPTS FROM THE DISCUSSION THREAD AT THE FARTHEST OUTPOST MESSAGE BOARD

Hellcat, posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003
First thoughts... this book its very different in style from the others. Art books in general seem to be portable exhibitions with explanations. This isn't, it's not a collection of photographs but a work of art in its own right and the writing... well I can see I'm going to get very good as deciphering Viggo's hand writing.
You can see how the layout works, pictures are arranged by theme or colour, there's a page of red smoke and lights, the black and white Tamdacht photos on a background of green paper covered with black and red notes. The pictures are all abstract ones, some of them I can tell what they are, like the sweaty flank of a horse, but most I can't (..) It all seems to be about colour and light, letting your mind pick up the associations it wants to make with the photos. It makes me think far more than the other books, those were just "I like this piece or that one" I need to lose myself properly in this book, no thinking, just absorbing.

Mackie, posted Jul 03, 2003
(..) The worst thing it does to me is that I constantly want to drop everything and take the camera and go out. I love the fact that it is so abstract. The layers, in pictures as well as in the book design, are wonderful. I want it to be bigger, I want the pictures to be as big as walls, especially the retreat pictures, they are an explosion of light and motion.

naja, posted Jul 03, 2003
I also found Hugin&Munin (and their meaning: Thought&Memory are also on that page). And (..) did you notice "mielo" is written several times on the pages in Lakota!!

Hellcat, posted Jul 03, 2003
Ditto what naja said. When I first opened the book it was some of the more striking pieces that got me, now it's becoming more of a whole and my thoughts blur. I think I need to look at the book either while (slightly) stoned or after meditation, just cos I'll be more relaxed and open.
Ohhhhhh I just found Back to Babylon!!!! coooooll. On a black and white page after the Miyelo photographs. Looks like there's extra words...

Candy, posted Jul 03, 2003 3:36 pm
 (..) My absolute favourite book so far!!!! The concept with Viggo's new direction of photography displayed on writing, mirrored and normal, inverted, colored is just fantastic. As I have ALWAYS loved handwriting and abstract pictures/paintings, this book is the gift of the year for me, Christmas in June - I love it. OK, gushing aside I'd like to comment on a few of the pieces that particularly speak to me (at least for now, as I constantly discover new fantastic features/pieces here)
(..) The writing. THE WRITING!!!! The color of the writing that is always matched with the colors of the pictures, or if not matched always making a perfect contrast to them. The size of the writing, artwork in itself when made so big that you can't read the words.

Rain, posted Jul 03, 2003
I spent time on our flight home deciphering the quotes in the book with Daz and Sue D. Firstly, there is a quote from the Koran in there somewhere (the one about entering the Garden of Bliss), secondly, there is a page which has writing over some kind of education form -- from a school or college (the page has the blurred trees photos on it) Daz pointed out that the quote at the bottom means "sweet memories". Thirdly, there is a quote that runs learnt to sing to please people. I love that one. And boy did he learn well... (..)
The book is my favourite by far -- in terms of layout and substance -- it just feels so rich and complete. I just can't put it down. It's incredible.

naja, posted Jul 03, 2003
In Odense I was too preoccupied with the exhibition to take the time to look at the book carefully, so it was only today I discovered it really needs to be read, from beginning to end. Usually books of photography can be browsed, but this one takes a very disciplined approach.
The cover is very striking, too bad this book isn't widely available in bookshops, because I think it would be quite an eyecatcher if it was on display, it just invites you to pick it up and open it.
The rhythm of do book is incredible, there is an introduction and there are chapters, all this without text except of course the glimpses of text in the background, some of the background is meant to be read, some is just purely form. I also noticed that the chapter that consists of the many coloured "empty" negatives is an interlude (although it still goes on a bit too long for my taste) After the interlude a completely different story begins.
This book is incredibly well put together colourwise and the colours are really strong (there is also black&white but I count that as grays)
(..) I'm also very (very) happy also that there is no pompous introduction by some art critic who has never even met Viggo this time.

Hellcat, posted Jul 07, 2003
I like the combination of the words and pictures, they excite cross over ideas, why these words with these pictures. Are they picked to illustrate the pictures or just because the design worked well??? I can see the bleakness of the trees with Back to Babylon, the word water appears next to the blue green of the Miyelo photos. I love the way suddenly in the midst of ghost dances in the desert you get a picture of Tokyo, (that picture is one of my favourites I love the vibrancy of cities) and the shear audacious way it fits so well into such a different theme... (..)
This book is like a treasure trove. I just noticed Waiting for the Moon and turn the page there's Moonrise. Wonder if the white squiggle is the moon?
Still not keen on the Still Point photos at the beginning of the book. To much blurred black and white with not enough to hold my attention. Sometimes the tree blurring works but others, humm, just reminds me of going fast in a car.
(..) The moment the eye begins to see -- That's really what this book is about to me, and one of the things I love about Viggo's photography in general. He's not trying to make me see something, to excite one particular emotion. My eye can move through the words and photographs to see what I want. The responses I get a natural, unforced and different each time I see the book(s).

kementari, posted Jul 09, 2003
T(heodore) Roethke... In a dark time, the eye begins to see... This is what I like about Viggo -- he quotes someone, or mentions an artist and... my library gets bigger and bigger!

Meara, posted Jul 11, 2003
I think this is one of those times when I must use Viggo's own words: Tried to say something that filled my mouth and longed to rest in your ear. Don't dare write it down for fear it'll become words, just words.
There is something about this book that goes beyond the limited communication of words. There aren't words to describe what this book makes me feel when I open it and dive into the ocean of sights that it offers. All different manner of sights: Write words backwards, and you notice the shape of the letter, the way the line crosses the page. The juxtaposition of the discernable line with the blurred movement and wash of colour in the photograph. White words on a black background, and the associations of black and white become flipped, reversed, not what we would expect.
There are pages in this book that I read and find myself close to tears. The waving lines of colour almost like grass on the page with Back to Babylon and written beneath is the quote from Hamlet: O what a rogue and peasant slave am I. I can feel the angry helplessness that comes from feeling like something is supposed to be done to stop the war machine from moving forward, but somehow the hands that would stop it, are always tied, nothing we do can ever be enough. (..)
I am familiar with a few of [Roetke's] poems, but I had never seen that one before, and it is stunning. I love the line Which I is I? It fits so nicely with the translation of Miyelo. It ties together a few of the themes of this book, a man's journey, which I think is echoed in the quote Do you think you shall enter the garden... It also echoes the question of identity. (..)

Hellcat, posted Jul 12, 2003
(..)It seems like the mixed media and abstract nature of Viggo's canvases has now come back to reflect in this book. It's gone full circle, the photos and poetry make a new type of canvas on the pages of the book. The photographs aren't "moment captures" they're fragments, pieces of the pages (God, this is difficult to express) part of the whole not really meant to be taken separately. You get different views from the words, pictures or the links between the two.

Stormy, posted Jul 12, 2003
(..) Now for me this book has not really settled in yet. For me this book is like watching raw footage of film. No music. Maybe only voices, but you can't hear everything people are saying. It's chaotic and all these different images are shifting by and all of a sudden someone says stop and you linger at a picture. Then the crazy chaotic pace picks up again.
I do love that Roethke poem: I so feel that journey of the poet. In a dark time the eye begins to see... I guess what it sees is the truth -- the begining of a truth at any rate...

Orpheus, posted Jul 15, 2003
(..) 45301 -- an arbitrary number, reeking of randomness and irrelevance. It could be the number on a roll of film. It could be the remembered telephone number of a forgotten person. It could the number of an unidentified corpse in a morgue. Just with a 'title' like that, the prelude is made into a journey into thought and memory, of seeking connections without the promise of actually finding any. Everything may seem random, because the meaning is hidden? Forgotten? Fead?
This is not a random book. I look at the cover, and suddenly, YES! I see more than colours. The black of darkness, edges around the colours of fire, framing a picture of tranquil nature as though the peace of the nature is surrounded by violence and destruction. Does the destruction invade the haven? 45301 -- thought and memory -- you figure out what you want to see.
Violence plays an enormous part in this book; I suddenly find myself gripping the book harder, my back is stiff and all I've done is opened the book to a random numberless page and seen a collection of torn negatives. I feel as though veins under my skin have been torn rather than negatives in some strange man's studio. The whole idea of negative strips connects to the backward writing -- both in terms of direction and also in terms of the fact that the sentences are fragmented as are the strips. its not just a case of looking backward, but taking steps backward, taking vision and thought backward. It's like Ghost Dance -- recovering power in the present through memories of the past.
I close the book and decide to make an attempt at sanity. I open it like a normal person and see the front endpaper, and find a strange sense of relief. And then the moment of sanity disappears and I turn to the back endpaper. It's not a surprise to me that they are Retreat 9 and Retreat 10 respectively. I knew that they belonged one after the other. I also know that they belong one after the other but only with the 150-odd pages in between. The white streaks on Retreat 9 remind me of spermatozoa, little powerhouses of energy, bursting with the need to create, to engender. They remind me of the whole idea of the human soul as a being of light, brilliant and pure. They remind me of energy, oscillating and throbbing. And then Retreat 10: the pink of before bleaches into white -- an overexposed negative, the oblivion of forgetfulness, a retreat with no niggling memories, going toward the light, the death of a certain history.
Just when I'm wondering what the writer has to say, I notice the title page. Spattered ink on white; an old typewriter's font. Writing is obsolete, foreign, perhaps even irrelevant. After all, it is a deeply oral and visual tradition which has inspired this book. In the writer's body flows ink in place of blood, an ancient writer said once. I touch the page. Could this book be a strange symbolic death of an author in the search for resurrection? Is this book a Ghost Dance to bring back an artist?

ElrondsMom, posted: Jul 20, 2003
(..) another thought... Did it occur to anybody that this collection reminds of the four elements? I mean in color and composition etc...? it's just the feeling it gives me.

Hellcat, posted: Jul 22, 2003
Some thoughts on the beginning of the book... The first film(is) a spark of creation (or the flash of a neuron), a bright streak across the film. Leads to more thoughts, to writing. Self expression beginning. The blurred pictures after than are the beginning of thoughts, forms, the words Hugin and Munin, thought and memory. The all at once colour appears, you get a page of reds page of blues. The more and more colours and thoughts. This book really is a journey, isn't it?

Meara, posted: Sun Jul 27, 2003
(..) There are definite connections to the 4 elements. Fire certainly runs through the first part of the book, but there (..) are 2 pages that have a series of photos that have earth, air, and water. The blues are incredible. Even the one that I am pretty sure is earth is blue, a huge blue mountain rising up out of a moonlit plain. Gorgeous. (..)

galen_quinn, posted Jul 31, 2003
(..) I was wondering through the first 1/2 [of the book], "What the hell did I buy?" And then in the second half I was crying.(..) It's designed to be primarily visual first, words are secondary. I'm wired the complete opposite of that. For me, it's all about the words. Pictures are secondary. (..)

Orpheus, posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003
(..) The fact is, this book DOES fascinate me. I think that's because it teases me with its mysteries. There are red herrings all over it, urging me to fall into their trap. It's like deciphering the writing -- I'm pretty certain in my rational mind that Viggo would keel over with laughter if he knew how some of us have pored over it and tried to weave a thread of rationale into them. But then again, does that stop me? No.
What is annoying and enthralling about this book for me is that it tickles me into making my own myth out of the pictures, out of my thought and memory... which really is a... fantastic exercise!

Phee, posted: Thu Aug 07, 2003
(..) I really love a couple of pages that are prob about 2 thirds of the way through the book, (that's the best I can do without page numbers). The page on the left has one large photo, which looks like bright blue water with light reflecting off it. The opposite page has two photos up the top which look like the sky, and one other photo of a mountain, (which looks kinda like a volcano to me actually). I love how he's captured so many of the elements in just those two pages. Water, light, air and earth. Though now that I think of it, if that is a volcano then there's fire hiding in there too.
And something I just noticed, (though I'm not sure it has any particular significance), is that on the cover, there appears to be lightning on the horizon in that photo. It's right over on the left, near the spine of the book. I didn't even notice it until just now. Anyway, it looks very similar to the first sequence of photos in the book, Still Point 16, which have that trail of light dashing all over the place. Like I said, I don't know that there's any particular significance for that, but whether or not it was intentional, for me it connects the cover photo to the photos in the book. The journey doesn't start when you open the book, it starts when you pick it up and just look at the cover photo. It's almost like he's picked up on that light, drawn it out of the photo on the cover, and then has it dancing across the first pages, leading you into the book. The more I look through this book, the more I love it.

Orpheus, posted: Aug 07, 2003
I guess none of us know what anything in that book is 'supposed' to mean, if indeed it's supposed to mean anything. The best part about abstract art is that what you see in it is as real and true as what the artist sees in it, whether or not the two things are similar.

Morganna, posted: Aug 17, 2003
(..) I started to think of the whole first part as being like the artist's mind, all of the chaos of images and flashes and words and colors floating around one image calling up another, that calling up a quote, things that would seem random except that they fit together somehow, all that chaos and creation being caught on the page.
The second part was all dreamy landscapes and images, a place the artist created, but still the real world. The real world made fantastic and a fantasy by the artist looking at it. The thing that struck me as odd about that is that that's how I think of Northern Renaissance artists, making the real world seem fantastic by their extreme realism. He's done the opposite with the same effect.
The other thing that struck me about this book is how Viggo is able to see beauty and art in anything or everything, what looks like strips of ruined film, or pictures that are out of focus or cut off, or taken with a broken camera, things that most people would throw out, he can see beauty in and share it with us. I've seen that in all the books, but even more in this one. (..)

Stormy, posted: Sep 06, 2003
(..) Hugin and Munin the crows/ravens that sat on Odin's shoulder. I think it has been mentioned that they flew out over the world and came back and reported everything to Odin. One is the raven of Thought, and the other the raven of Memory.
(..) On the Iceland page: there is a partial quote from a Michael Ondaatje poem that says the sky lovely with stars. It comes from a book of his poetry called Handrwiting. (..)

Quote: A woman who journeys to a tryst
having no jewels,
darkness in her hair,
the sky lovely with stars

Candy, posted Sep 7, 2003
I found this review on the net:

Quote: The last poem of the first division has a citation as its title -- All those poets as famous as kings (29) -- and bears the characteristics of a double-columned vocabulary book. Four idiomatic expressions are listed that do not seem to have any relationship with each other, but they get into a correspondence and even anticipate Flight: A woman who journeys to a tryst... having no jewels... darkness in her hair... the sky lovely with its stars (29). Actually, these are not vocabs, but fragments of poems or even fragments as poems.

Stormy, posted: Sep 07, 2003
I think, if I understand correctly, that each line is whole unto itself and not supposed to relate to the other three lines. STILL what makes this so cool is that it is seen as a piece they do work together -- a quick image is created.
Flight though the reference to flight though, does that mean something about the woman who journeys to a tryst, is she about to be in flight? Also notice that those words are right above the picture of the birds in flight - the Iceland picture in the book.
And just rambling on here -- that makes me feel like much of this book has the feeling of flight. Now I am thinking that is like the two Ravens -- Hugin and Munin -- they travel the world and the words the images and sounds they hear they bring back to Odin... These almost incoherent glimpses of reality... do they need to be processed and understood? Do they need to be brought to some kind of wisdom? Or just some reassurance of reality? Or is just the beauty of the flight?
Wherein the disparate images and thoughts brought together are as a whole rather like that Michael Ondaatje's poem.

miriel, posted Sep 25, 2003
(..) I looked this book over a couple of times when I first got it and then put it aside, feeling curious but mildly dissatisfied. I just started looking at it again and this time I'm feeling like I've just seen it for the first time and I'm fascinated. I've got to get the names of pictures organized so I can try to put down my feelings. Right now I'm looking at two pictures which are making me feel like I'm seeing someone's memories. What a haunting quality and the colors look like Rembrandt. I've counted 13 pages from the back, including the page with the photo list as page #1. It's like seeing ghosts of ancient warriors. What an eerie but gorgeous picture.

EveDallas4Aragorn, posted Sep 27, 2003
(..) what I see in this book, I think, are paintings done with a camera. And they are so very beautiful. They evoke many emotions in me.

miriel, posted Sep 29, 2003
I'm looking at the photographs on those two pages and wondering why he chose to put them there. Hindsight 3 reminds me both of billowing sand (the desert) but more than that, I keep thinking of an angel's wing, perhaps an allusion to all those senselessly killed. The bottom billows though, oddly enough, remind me of shoes walking. Marrakech 3 is a grove of trees and they look so linearly planted as though they're in an orchard. That makes me think of the line in Back to Babylon about the "grove of spindly, trembling tamarisk shadows lining the main road."

Hellcat, posted Oct 14, 2003
I just realised something... the front cover of 45301 is actually a sunny day... I always looked at it and saw grass being blown in the wind and storm clouds in the distance. Now I've realised that the squiggle in the background is not a lighting streak its the sun. Completely change the atmosphere of that photograph... Difference between perception and reality, huh!

Read the whole discussion here

IDENTIFIED QUOTES:

Distilled from the discussion at FOP:

Koran: do you think that you shall enter the garden of bliss without such trials as came to those who passed here before you

W. Whitman Song to Myself: And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud ...

T. Roethke, from In a Dark Time: in a dark time the eye begins to see.This line is also the first words Viggo says in the Documentary on FOTR SE DVD.

Wolfram von Eschenbach, from medieval poem, Parzifal To be whole...to be wholly ourselves and for that we must address our darkness as well as our light

Back to Babylon

Quote from Hamlet: O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.

Michael Ondaatje's poem from a book of his poetry called Handrwiting: A woman who journeys to a tryst / having no jewels / darkness in her hair / the sky lovely with stars

There is a current project running at Viggo-Works in which we are trying to find out more of text references. With interesting results :-) > discussion | project notes

LINKS

Roetke
Odin on Wikipedia

CONTENT:

PHOTOS:

Hindsight 67 2003
Retreat 9 2003
Still Point 16 2003
Ride 76 2003
Still Point 17 2003
Still Point 7 2003
Still Point 10 2003
Still Point 2003
Still Point 11 2003
Still Point 12 2003
Still Point 13 2003
Still Point 14 2003
Still Point 15 2003
Culver City 2002
Erfoud 12 2002
Erfoud 19 2002
Erfoud 59 2002
Tamdacht 29 2002
Santa Maria 2003
Santa Maria 3 2003
Santa Maria 2 2003
Obispo 2003
Jardin de Luz 2003
Retreat 11 2003
Dumont 4 2003
Retreat 18 2003
Retreat 13 2003
Ride 43 2002
Tamdacht 19 2002
Go 10 2002
Tamdacht 20 2002
Tamdacht 22 2002
Tamdacht 23 2002
Tamdacht 24 2002
Gouverneur 2 2003
Shipshape 5 2000
Burn Books 2000
January 2 2003
Jul 3 2002
Tacoma 2003
Tacoma 2 2003
New Year 5 2003
New Year 4 2003
North 6 2002
Still Point 18 - 22 2003
Ride 29 2002
Mielo 9 2003
Mielo 11 2003
Mielo 10 2003
Mielo 12 2003
Tokyo 12 2003
Mielo 3 2003
Mielo 6 2003
Mielo 14 2003
Mielo 5 2003
Mielo 13 2003
Marrakech 3 2002
Hindsight 3 2002
Marrakech 2 2002
Marrakech 4 2002
Ride 46 2002
Ride 45 2002
Hindsight 28 2002
Topanga 18 2003
Waiting For The Moon 2003
Moonrise 2002
Morning 9 2002
Last Light 2003
Morning 8 2002
Morning 7 2002
Wild 20 2002
Wild 21 2002
Wild 26 2002
Retreat 5 2002
Rachid's 2 2002
Topanga 7 2002
Twilight 3 2002
Retreat 4 2002
Hoka-Hei 2003
Vor 12 2003
Hindsight 31 2002
Vor 5 2003
Told 3 2003
Fototeca 2003
Hacia Mariel 2003
Fototeca 2 2003
West 3 2002
Open 2002
Self-Portrait, Spring 2003
Retreat 10 2002