Script online

“In the story of my life, I’m the star. My phone is my hero. My camera my best friend.”

Lyrics found in a magazine, commercial add, very suitable for the Media Me Choir.

Score: Barbara Okma.

Paint me

Schilderij gemaakt door Martijn de Boer.

Het script van Media Me, you’re in my story ligt op dit moment ter beoordeling bij het Mediafonds Nederlandse Culturele Omroepprodukties.

Uitslag: 15 februari 2010.  To be continued…

About A and B

photo from the Media Me pool: Robert in Toronto.

Next to the voice of Pictureman there are two other voices talking.
I call them A and B.
They’re like commenters, sitting in an editroom, surrounded by lots of machines.

I wrote this ten days ago on this workblog.
In ten days anonymous voices can become true characters. As long as you keep on writing, they become persons. Invisible, but still.

Today A stands for Andy, a young men who’s lying in bed. Tired, not ill.
He likes to be on the sideline of things. An observer, a curious ‘lurker‘.
Andy is in a constant dialogue with B, who started talking like a Machine more and more over the last week.
That’s why B’s official name is now: Machine.

Machine has the voice of a young woman. Warm, gentle and emphatic, but also very demanding and straightforward.
She’s in charge of the conversation. She knows everything and sets the rules. A superdirector.
The dialogue between Andy and Machine sounds like a telephone conversation in the middle of the night.
(Note: They’re not in the same room anymore.)

Machine has her own manners.
She invites Andy into the world of Media Me and introduces him to Pictureman in nine steps.
“You’re my model”, she says to the old man.
Andy comments: “I don’t think I’m ready for this. What are you doing? Who is he?”
Pictureman is in between the two of them, just being himself. The official narrator.

Preview of the first pages of the audioscript can be found here: at Imagine me, where it starts.

Windows became eyes

photo: Akbar Simonse.

Pictureman says:

Look closer.
Each photo tells a story.
First there were buildings.
I started taking pictures of buildings.
Then, after a while, I moved slowly from buildings to persons.
From stones to bodies.
From walls to skin.
I went inside.
Opened the doors.
Windows became eyes.

So, this is my town. My country.
This is where I live.
In persons.

Next week Akbar and I will meet in Amsterdam.
I need more information about him. Stories I can use.
Could he be the “owner” of the Media Me pool on Flickr, in the script?

The textdocument on my desktop is getting shape, in a chaotic way.
Chaos comes with the subject: The digital revolution.
Next to the voice of Pictureman there are two other voices talking.
I call them A and B.
They’re like commenters, sitting in an editroom, surrounded by lots of machines.

(…)

A: This is not about him, is it?

B: No, he’s just the narrator, a collecter.

A: Ah. I see. Can he hear us?

B: Shhhh.

Last two months. Call it reality.

Photo: Marco Habanero.
Left: me.
Right: Akbar Simonse.

About the videorecordings July/August

For two months we worked without a script.
I asked Akbar Simonse to be my model.
In Media Me your name will be Pictureman, I said.
We will portray you in several ways.
We will put you in different settings.
Let’s call it scenes.
We follow you at home, on the street, dressed in costumes, day and night.
As a director I just have one question: Can you act as if we’re not there?
Be as natural as possible? Don’t do something you would never do?
That’s ok, he said. I promise you not to act.

After a few weeks I asked if he missed a script.
No, he said, I would never cooporate in this project if there was a script.
You are the script, I said.
Yes, he said. The script, c’est moi.

His interiour was ours.
We recorded his kitchen, his bedroom, his toilet, his computer.
We spied on him in an organised way, from the attic of his neighbours house, on the otherside of the block.
The neighours asked: Does he know you are filming him?
Of course, we said, and waved to eachother.
At that time there was a telephone on the speaker, in his house, with my voice, saying things like:
_ Go to the kitchen.
_ Find a cup or a glass or something.
_ Take a drink.
_ Go back to your computer, slowly.
_Close the curtains.

Ronnie Griens and Matthijs Treurniet have been of great value during the recordings. Most of the time they worked for themselves.
We used YouTube and Vimeo for updates.
My directions were very simple. I asked them to come as close as possible, while filming Akbar.
Approach him as if he is a very important person in which every detail, every movement counts.

From the beginning of the recordings he said: I don’t want to become famous by all this.
What do you mean, I asked.
It may take away my anonimity. Media Me shouldn’t disturb me in public space. I want to keep on taking pictures freely. If DWDD calls for interviews, I will refuse. I ab-so-lu-tel-ly do not want to become famous.
They won’t call, I said. Radio and TV don’t pay much attention to these kind of projects, developed on internet. It’s just not their piece of cake. Broadcasters use other techniques. They know how to reach masses, how to manipulate and entertain you. That’s our goal, our proof of our existance. We calculate.
Seperate worlds, he said.
I guess so, I said. TV and radio don’t pay much attention to the gaming industry as well. Maybe it’s a threat. Games reach millions of people too. Just like TV. Competition, power, influence.
I don’t like games, he said.
Me neither, I said. But still, this is a kind of game we’re playing.

He left his house, sat in a train, visited the Media Park in Hilversum and the biggest studio of Europe: Studio 22.
We went to his favorite spots in The Hague, had a sober meal in an empty restaurant.
We didn’t visit a garden or a park, for he doesn’t takes pictures of flowers, plants and trees.
He photographs people in the street, and their artistic traces, like graffity and streetart.
Once, years ago, he started with taking pictures of buildings. Then people entered his account. Candid portraits, situations, call it reality.

He said: I don’t want this project to be about me. I’m the narrator, not the main character. But you’re free to use the stories I tell you.
But if you’re not the main charachter of this story, I asked, who is?
All members of The Pool? The machines?

I’m working on a radioscript now.
The soundtrack of “the movie”.
It will be a multi-layered script with many voices and sounds.
First layer is the narrator: Pictureman.
I send my texts to Akbar and ask him: “Do you agree on this? Could you say things like this?”
When he says yes, I publish these texts here.
They’re inspired by the movies, over fifty minutes of video so far, and our conversations during the last two months.

Thank you, Akbar.
Let’s write.

Bert Kommerij.