Andrew Schroeder

It has been a great but long weekend. I’m still waiting to pay my rent (life in a digital age, when a landlord’s website crashes and I’m up a creek)… and I have a distinct feeling that it is FINALLY time for things to begin growing again. But, to get to the point… a couple of noteworthy tidbits from this weekend:

Happy Birthday Andrew

1. I managed to survive to age 27. Quite the feat considering the way that I love André.
2. Curtis introduced me to the French interview series: En Aparté. Created by Pascale Clark the show takes an incredibly interesting form: an interviewee is sent to an apartment. The apartment is wired with various cameras that move and follow the person being interviewed. A female voice (Pascale) asks questions of the interviewee… but this person is never introduced to us. Throughout the interview, objects, images, and various other random things from the interviewee’s life will be introduced and their reaction documented.

(Tangentially, I wonder if this format has anything to do with the French mastery of apartment living?)

Check this out:
En Aparté

I’m really interested in this idea of the environment as interrgator. Perhaps, if I spoke French, I would be able to make better analysis of this show… but what appeals to me is this demarcation of space as an active agent. Instead of traditional 20/20 style, don’t look at the camera, pure focus on the subject outside of any context, we are offered an environment that surrounds the interviewee and pushes forward encompassing and unexpected situations.

Rather than just looking into two well-lit faces that are opposite each other, the viewer is presented with the minute details of the interview. For example, I love watching the way that Nicola Sirkis pours a cup of tea. The smallest details of the everyday provide a context of identity – of being – that is much more complex and a traditional interview could ever offer.

I love it.