The Systems Interfacing Reports:
System: Sol.
Planet: Terra.
Date: 1978.
Three videotapes suggesting the possibilities for a visual language that could convey ideas of process and the physics of information flow seen through a non-human – or an extra-normal, augmented human – visual perceptual system. These works were made at the tail end of the psychedelic era and reflect ideas that had formed the basis of the conceptual framework behind Bush Video.
What is, was, always will be: only the dreaming remains to remind recent generations. No attempt is made to suggest how or way, the present images fire our imagination to questions not answers. The myth endures. [from the programme notes for VideOzone, Ozone Cinema, Paddington, July 1978.]
There are three videos collected together as a trilogy
Stonehenge (1976-78) [Colour, sound, 14min 25sec],
Originally shot on Super 8 film in the UK, (1976).
Post-production: IVC 1" videotape at Paddington Video Access Centre (1978),
Camera, editor and technical: Stephen Jones
Ken Gunter: Music
The camera moves slowly around and through the stones at Stonehenge. Light and colour stream from the stones as though they were producing their own energy, which can only be seen through augmented eyes. All this as though during a partial eclipse of the sun.
TV Buddha (for Nam June Paik) (1977-78) [Colour, sound, 9min 40sec],
Originally shot on Super 8 film at the Art Gallery of NSW during Moorman and Paik in Australia (April 1976).
Post-production: IVC 1" videotape at Paddington Video Access Centre (1978),
Camera, editor and technical: Stephen Jones
Sound: chorus of birds on Mt Tambourine, Brisbane. (1976) Recorded by Stephen Jones.
The Buddha that Nam June Paik used for his Sydney (April 1976) version of his TV Buddha is Maitreya (The Buddha of the Future). This particular Maitreya sculpture (from Kyoto, Japan) was previously owned by John Kaldor.
As the technical attendant on this show, Stephen Jones was given permission by Paik to film his work and to make the homage. Paik was given a copy of the final work.
Concentrating on the Buddha, the video imagines what it might be like within the consciousness of such a powerful meditation. Beginning from the AGNSW installation, the Buddha flickers in and out of the planes of existence, becoming a being of pure light.
Tai Chi Transforms (1977-78) [Colour, sound, 14min 01sec]
Originally shot on Super 8 film in Sydney, Australia, (1977).
Post-production: 1" IVC videotape at Paddington Video Access Centre (1978),
Camera, editor and technical: Stephen Jones
Sound: Stephen Jones, using EMS: VCS3 audio synthesiser.
Tai Chi performance: John Bourke.
Tai Chi is a a form of choreographed motion that harnesses Chi from the background layer of the world, absorbing it into the human body and thus providing powerful energetic and spiritual force.
Chi can be thought of as the undivided stuff of the cosmos from which all else is differentiated by consciousness.
Several repeats of the performance of the initial forms imagine ways in which that undifferentiated stuff might be gathered, thus drawing out its light-forms through video feedback.
From the Tao Te Ching
The Way that can be named is not the way.
Heaven and earth begin in this nameless way.
Naming is the source of the 10,000 things.
Desireless, you realize the mystery.
In desiring, you see only the manifestations.
Both mystery and manifestation arise from this source,
which is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The deepest mystery. The gate of understanding.
How deep and unfathomable is the Tao.
