It wasn’t easy to put words on it, or to figure it out concretely. It was something evasive, like floating and repeating itself. But the ink drops came just after, when we explored the use of a few materials to create these indefinite and random forms with the “Video Larsen”, or video feedback.

Interesting. Can you explain the Video Larsen, or feedback, and how it worked?

Romain :

Speaking with Ana about this infinite space that we wanted to create, I remembered an old experiment I’d made about ten years ago, for a theater piece. A performer asked me to film him and to screen it live behind him, I had just discovered the “Video Larsen” technique at the time… to screen what you film and to film what you screen. Or, how to create an infinite space in an analog way on video!

I heard that you shot it in one take with very little post-production. How did you execute the drops to coordinate with the music?

Ana :

Yes, it was a one-take shoot. We both stood with different ink containers in our hands while the music was playing and we reacted live to what we were feeling.

We had some ideas and the music in mind, but we really improvised. For example, the black shape at the end was not prepared… We made three separate takes, and the third one was quite perfect… so that’s the one we used. We just made some little corrections on a computer and color graded it.

Standing over the glass with ink containers in your hands… how were you able to get the timing right?

Romain:

This effect is really hard to control, even more in a creative and precise way…

To be more clear, the ‘Larsen effect’ was made live; we placed the device under the camera and the glass, so the device doesn’t act on timing, it just repeat the forms with a little delay. For the good timing, it was just control; we listened the track many, many times….