Heidi Harris – Animal Insect /// THE MUSIC VIDEO

quando ti chiedono cos'hai fatto, non dire che hai fatto un video. perché sarebbe come se a uno scalatore chiedessero: "cos'hai fatto?"
e lui rispondesse "ho fatto un buco e ho spinto la bandiera più in giù che potevo".

when they ask you what did you make, don't say you made a video. because it would be as if a climber were asked: "what did you make?" and he answered "I made a hole and I pushed the flag down as deep as I could".

*

Working on this project, I often smiled thinking about how it was sweet that a song from the other side of the Ocean was making me discover so much more Utrecht, the town where I moved around one year ago and that I'm loving so intensely each istant.

Two nights ago, when Animal Insect was already going online, I was a bit contemplating on the Internet the place in which the inspiration found Heidi Harris when she wrote Animal Insect: Brooklyn. She lived on its roofs till some weeks ago (now she's in another zone of New York City). I already knew that first New York was New Amsterdam, well, this something commonly pretty known, as the Dutch people was among who started the city of the current New York, but I found out only that night that the etymology of Brooklyn is "Breukelen". I guess that for a lot of you "Breukelen" doesn't mean anything, but Breukelen is a small place right in the province of Utrecht.


So one day I'll go in Breukelen with the fish made of shells that found me some weeks ago in my favourite magic antiek, De Oude Pijpenlade. And with some white yarn. It could be useful.


Meanwhile, I'm glad to finally let run around our creature…

••••

Animal Insect is part of the new album by Heidi Harris, Cut the Line, available here.

Our deep collaboration has a lot to do also with the vinyl, for which I have the honour of seeing my artworks going around on such a lovely musical object.

••••

I would to thank once again here each energy that brought us here.


Thanks to Erica Lanzoni, that shared with me some of her visions, months ago.

Thanks to Vere Van de Meerendonk, for all the unbelievable intensity with which went into this idea, since the first time that I mentioned it to her. 

Thanks to Jul Jackalope, the custodian that guides my consciousness between all the different levels of reality.

Thanks to Dorotea Pace, that importantly fed the story and sweetly, patiently listened my brainstorming, even if it went like a psychiatrical examination («Doctor, doctor, I saw a strange creature and some yards and and and [endless mysterious vague gesticulate] and and I don't know maybe something else but I swear I see something more just over there keep letting me talk perhaps I'm gonna have I'm gonna have it I'm gonna see it wait wait wait Doctor here we go it's coming it's coming it's coming, Doctor Dò, I really some maybe mumble tomorrow a day and an eye and uh, a "rocket", did you say?»).

Thanks to Cornelis Plet, for the object number 890431, that I payed with the sticker of a Unicorn.

Thanks to my chabbi, Carolina Farina, that came directly from Paris, taking many photographs (that will be around soon) and helped me with any kind of fuckin' bothering problem, also when I was losing a little little bit my focusing and I was probably sounding as a very annoying silly troublemaker. And letting me repeat all the time to everybody that we were basically celebrating our great meaningful 10th anniversary of friendship, tolerating my violent joy overdose. (No, unless that you met me, you probably cannot imagine how I can turn exactly in this kind of phenomena; I can be tiring for real.)

Thanks to Pema Tigelaar, that opened herself to all my requests and also helped me a lot – above all realising the old hope that I had when many months ago I secretly written her name on my ideas notebook.

Thanks to Dirk van de Veek, for respectfully letting me interpretate.

Thanks to Rudi Bonfiglioli, for that absurd moment in which I saw him so shocked contemplating the shootings with himself with Masha.


Thanks to Masha Rozhnova, that after fitting so perfectly the picture that I drawn for her, turned in one of the best art-mate of my whole life.

Thanks to Elodie Clemence Romero, for all her interior process and for that question for which I deeply wish a proper conversation together, one day… in Montpellier.

Thanks to Wilma Kun, for the rare calm seriousness with which she worked and, of course, for letting me freely film her artworks at her home. (And for the tasty launch!)

Thanks to Siggy De La Blues, because when I explained to him his role, he said «I knew».

Thanks to Iggy Antoine Fornerino, for his enthusiasm, his suggestions and his spontaneous reaction when I saw him watching the video still in the timeline.

Thanks to Patricia Elders, because after my tale to the phone about the concept, when I was still a complete stranger, she then just said «It's like my life». And, in the end, she loved our strange experience so much, anyway.

Thanks to Mechelien, even if in the end she missed the shootings. For her sparkling eyes in the basement of her shop, that unique afternoon.

Thanks to the best special guest ever, the random dog in the park! And thanks to Simone Franceschini, that tried first to finding a-not-so-randome-one.

Thanks to a kind of "reluctant messiah" with which certain concepts started.

Thanks to Cory Zaradur and to Inner Ocean Records – how couldn't I love a music label with such an evoking name?


A special thanks to the Municipality of Utrecht and to the artists Jan Hein Daniëls and Willem Hoebink, authors of the artwork that I filmed at the Pausdam, an installation part of the project Trajectum Lumen, that makes even more psychedelic and magic walking through Utrecht, enlightening some meaningful spots of this historical city.

 – The etymology of Utrecht, indeed, is the Latin word for "trajectory". And I smile again every time that I think about this, because totally looks like that this place is exactly supposed to be on the way, also the way of the bunch of people that comes from elsewhere and will go somewhere else again. –

So, in the end, thanks to Utrecht, this intense place where I'm finding so many inspiring homes.



And thanks to Heidi,
 for all her whole harmonically behave into an idea of creative process so nicely closed to mine, in which the art itself comes first;
 for deciding to share so much with me;
 for being able to see I what I see too.


Thanks to the magic;
thanks to the synchronicity.


And thanks to all of you, if you will enjoy the wave or if you won't at all, if you'll keep what it will generate for your inner world or if you'll creating a new sharing with it.

*

This was what Enda told me a few moments after watching the music video for Animal Insect.

This post isn't supposed to be my perception of the hole and the flag.

This would be eventually up to you, to let me see how they look from your point of view – because the art keeps to work and grow in the eyes of the watcher, to hopefully turn in something new.

Here I just wanted to whisper a few things about all the long tripping on the mountain and the friends that came with me – even if not the whole tale neither.

The whole tale is called "Life"

and I'm exactly wishing you enjoy it.