Production history around: Communication

This article will go over everything that happened around the ‘Communication’ project. The main premise of ‘Communication’ is that it was made by Phaedra (Madelen) and I communicating back and forth via 3-minute long videos. In these diaries, we got to know more about each other over time. It was my first longitudinal project (if you don’t count ‘Graffiti’ which used abandoned footage or ‘Disseminate’ which used past project footage).

In terms of my research into chance, ‘Communication’ was a project that allowed me to relinquish control. The project has two directors. We cannot predict how someone would respond, or where the project really would end up. We decided on the rules (3 minutes, sent back and forth, black and white), but other than that it was all up in the air. I really wanted to collaborate with people more, especially since my ‘Corpse Project’ fell through (what became Disseminate).

Obviously this article will only cover my side of the story, and I am sure Phaedra has very different feelings around the project, as well as different recollection of events.

On the 7th of January 2025, I saw a post on r/ExperimentalFilm asking people whether they were interested in a shared community Discord. I had always wished there was more of an online Experimental film community, so I jumped in asking for an invite.

On the 8th of January 2025, Phaedra shared three video files on the Discord called ‘Unfinished 1’, ‘Unfinished 2’, and ‘Unfinished 3’. I thought they were really interesting. She came across as someone that ‘wanted to do something, and just did it’. Minimal planning, but with a vision. There was this energy that was very much believing what you were doing was both being silly, and art. Shitpost, but sincere. It felt very DADA.

I decided to reach out to her, asking if she would like to do the project with me. For context this was after I posted ‘Arc’, but before I posted ‘diaDOGue’.

Originally my friend Moof was going to edit the project, to add more chance to its creation. However, as we were coming to the end of the project, we realised that the pureness of the communication was better with the back and forth being left untouched, or rather how Phaedra and I saw the videos originally.

With the choice of black and white being used, it was both something Phaedra was more comfortable with, and new for me to play with. It also allowed our pieces to play back-to-back and have some form of cohesion.

Video 01 (Brandon) 2025–01–19

This is my least favourite video in the bunch, which always is a shame when that’s the first video. I do think it is interesting in the sense that I have no clue what to expect, or how the project will really be. In the video I am so reserved, a bit worried to scare Phaedra away by being too over the top. I ask too many questions, with some of them maybe being a bit deep. It’s funny how much you can overanalyse yourself, but do not do the same for others. Also the hat is so lame! I do love it too. I am conflicted.

I think the small amounts of context littered through-out these videos is really interesting. For example, David Lynch’s passing. My wife losing her voice. Working on AQUA, etc. These little bits of information instantly transport me back. The idea that communication is always situated in context, I think, is very important to think about. We are reactionary creatures. We take in the world, and give back to the world. For better or worse.

It’s cool that this was all before Phaedra was in AQUA Magazine with me. Another thread which tied us together.

She made ‘Ask the Water’ which led to lots of other interesting events within and around the magazine’s publication.

In my films, I always like to share little pieces of myself which are for the most part inconsequential. In this one, it was my sticker wardrobe. Whenever I get a sticker, it goes there. I like that it tells hundreds of little stories, some I would get in trouble if I told.

Though, I do obviously worry ‘am I sharing too much’ with what I do? To put yourself out there, in a genuine sense, is to be vulnerable. Someone could easily use everything I put out there to hurt me and others. I have had a stalker in the past too which has contacted my work, my family, etc. They shared things I have done and said ‘look, doesn’t this look bad’, and so on and so forth. I do not have a full, fully realised answer on where I sit with it all. It’s the problem of wanting to be understood, or wanting to be remembered, but also never seen. It is a deep contradiction, like many human characteristics.

In reflection, I find it humorous, me saying that I’m “Hoping it becomes a mess of some kind”. That’s often what I am pursuing when it comes to most things.

Video 02 (Phaedra) 2025–01–22

I love that with this she instantly opened the door for me to be a bit silly in the next one. Though, from what I know about Phaedra now, it does feel like she is ‘masking’ in this a bit too. It makes me think about that there are levels of being open. That there are layers of sincerity.

She says some interesting things in this.

“I just want to be happy. I want to be free. And I think we are all going to die soon, so I think its best that we use the time we have. Because when everything goes to shits in this world, all we have is our experiences and our memories.”

Regardless of what happens in the world, we cannot escape the finality of it all, so grow as deep and wide as you can, while you can. I do actually believe that this is her ethos. Thank you for sharing it with me.

Phaedra also makes (in my opinion) an accidental, but really good point when viewed from an extended context.

“This is a mirror. I am looking straight into my eyes. I am not looking at you when I am talking to you. I’m communicating to myself.”

By creating these videos, we are not just talking to another person, we are analysing how we communicate as individuals. We think about how we want to put ourselves out into the world. We think about how we feel, and bounce ideas at the wall hoping they hit us in the face and lead to some internal realisation. By talking to others, we understand ourselves.

Also I have no fucking clue what type of voice she is doing in this video, but I am here for it.

Video 03 (Brandon) 2025–01–25

This response is when I started to use the previous Phaedra film as a ‘prompt’ for the text one. Since she was using a mirror, I would use a mirror. I was trying to mirror her. That said, this little video feels way more authentically me than my previous one.

With drinking the toilet water, it was quite funny to see that people see editing cuts like that as being real events. Both Phaedra, and some people we had over to do an early screening of ‘Communication’ with appear to believe it was real…

The art thing I was talking about was ‘SOOP Collective’s Planet Night’ on the 25th of January 2025. It was an interesting night. This night is partly what led to me creating my film ‘Genesis’.

Video 04 (Phaedra) 2025–02–09

It’s funny that I pretty much out freak her freak in some ways. The idea that communication is a constant pushing back and forth to try and figure out where the boundaries are.

“I don’t think that’s the vibe”. It’s interesting when you start to recognise the idiosyncrasies of individuals. For Phaedra, it’s ‘going with the flow’, ‘the vibe’, and doing a little wave motion with her hands. It’s one of those things where I love the idiosyncrasies of others, and dislike my own. I am not sure why that is.

Her wanting to see ‘the cat’ is something I still reference every now and then. Noodle and Toffee are cats.

Video 05 (Brandon) 2025–02–12

“I am the vibe.” With this response video, I really did not want to lean back into being more reserved. The genie was out of the bottle. This really has been the way I have been trying to live the past 2 years. I do realise that it means I am likely less appealing to certain groups, but fuck ’em.

I don’t really have much to say on my ethos below, other than 6 months later, I still feel that same. I want to post it here too so it exists in text form as well:

“My goal comes across as egotistical, but I don’t really view it like that. I really like when things I do exist beyond myself. The idea that I could make something and then forget about it, and this little spiralling thread of me is flowing and flowing, and connecting to other things. I think its really cool, the idea that the more thread I shoot out into space, the more webs are connected to other people and other things.”

“Also like, I am a nihilist to the bone. I don’t think anything matters, but there is a fun in trying to get a high score, you know what I mean? It’s a bit of a meme to be like ‘oh I’m going to be in a hundred galleries’, ‘oh I’m going to get a PhD’, because its like shitposting, right? Trying to do it to see if you can. You could say why don’t you try and do thing that make you happy? What even is that?”

I really like that in this response, my wife Isobel accidentally gets brought into the conversation as well. I am not just ‘myself’, but everyone around me. We all exist as webs of connections. The dogs are included in this.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends (Gotta get with my friends).

Video 06 (Phaedra) 2025–02–23

Stickers as a physical representation of connection is an interesting idea. Also, the fact that this ‘stuck’ with her is fun.

“I think one of my main thoughts about the world and what’s important is connection. In every way I interact with the world, I try to bring the most authentic version of myself to find connection in places and to make other people feel they connect with me as well.”

I agree with this sentiment. For me, the connections have always been more important than the nodes. The relationship between ideas are where the true meat of thought exists. The schema of how we make sense of things is by going through our backlog of comparisons and relationships. You exist when observed by another, and by observing another, you allow them to exist.

Being authentic too, is extremely important. I think its good that we try not to muddy the picture of the self, by creating false copies of ones self to match the relationship expectations of others. You cease to exist in a true sense if people picture a mirage that you put up to hide yourself.

It’s very interesting Phaedra talking about just because she does not have a goal, does not mean she doesn’t have a sense of purpose, but rather that its her way of ‘feeling her way through the world’. It’s the method, rather than the methodology. The boots you put on in order to wade through the mud of existence. She is flow, and I am chance.

Video 07 (Brandon) 2025–02–24

The little Phaedra stickers are still all over the house. I like that I constantly see them. A physical reminder of impact. They will probably be around forever to be honest, or at least as long as the ink on the paper survives.

I often like to have physical reminders of my projects through-out the house, transforming it.

Bits of ‘Broodiest Flunkey’ are scattered everywhere.

The same with ‘Genesis’ character which was made for the film, and the Furby which was in ‘Circles’. This Furby got additional meaning because it was in the piece. I feel like I am constantly ‘adding meaning’.

Or the art made the robots in ‘Tinguely Feeling’, which feels like its own ‘thing’, separate from the film.

The house becomes a piece of art too then in a sense. A ‘living’ piece of art.

Eating one of the stickers really adds to this, in my opinion. The sticker (or at least what could be digested) became a part of me too. A part of the many cells in my body. A ‘living’ piece of art.

Video 08 (Phaedra) 2025–03–29

I do feel a bit bad with this one! Needing to respond to a piece of communication which has no words. I like that she matched the energy.

It’s funny that Phaedra was so worried about not responding promptly, but the extended sense of time, I feel, really adds to the piece. She responded, so she succeeded (in my eyes).

“I am not a runner” is another regular quote from me. This project has infected my lexicon.

The tone of this video is really unsettling. It is amazing.

Video 09 (Brandon) 2025–04–08

I wanted to have each of my responses be somewhat different. An excuse to experiment with something new. For this one, I decided to use a puppet of myself.

Regarding the puppet backstory, and what it led to, I talk a lot about it in my ‘Bones of Tyche’ article, so that’s worth having a look at.

It’s weird how much I enjoy using puppets. It is something you can instantly transform into an ‘entity’. You can make something ‘exist’ for a short period of time.

I often cannot help but be ‘meta’ in what I do. Within the project, talking about how the project could be made. Asking Phaedra, how we should do it, from within the video. I have been like this for as long as I can remember. One of the first Youtube videos I made where I was doing a ‘let’s play’ (it was Portal, in 2012 I think), I remember talking about what editing effects I was going to use, while playing the game. The process of ‘how’ to do something was way more fun to me, and overshadowed ‘entertainment’ or ‘accessibility’. These articles in a way are an extension of that need to communicate process.

It is cool though to see me wrestling with ideas of interest, appropriateness, timelessness, ethics, etc. while working on the project. That thinking is preserved.

Also, apologies to my wife that I am so annoying, and that I find it so fun to piss her off sometimes. Puppet me is just so sassy.

Video 10 (Phaedra) 2025–04–28

“They will see how bad I am at responding”

For some context, I was getting to the end of my filming for my Fluxus Museum commission piece ‘Bones of Tyche’, and I had asked Phaedra if she could film some scenes for it. Not only did I think it would be cool to have her involved, but I wanted to tie it to as many of my previous works as possible. Having it pre-emptively tied to ‘Communication’ would have been an extra link, and played nicely into the whole fate thing.

I feel similar to Phaedra when it comes to ‘breaking the boundary’ in terms of starting a conversation. I can talk, once a bridge has been crossed. I feel like I need this practice too. The ability to just talk to anyone you see.

Video 11 (Brandon) 2025–05–21

After making my previous video with the ‘me’ hand puppet, I did a lot of thinking about puppetry in general. I came to realise that the egg creature in ‘Genesis’ was a puppet. I also came to realise that when I was a PNG-tuber a few years back, that was also a ‘puppet’. A puppet which represented me. That I made in order to communicate more easily with others.

I also just wanted to pin another tiny part of me to my work. In January of 2025, I wrote an article on ‘Cuatro’, a character I created in 2015. Ever since then, I have been thinking about how to immortalise the small moments that brought me here. I wanted the ‘Ku Urchins’ to exist somewhere, so why not here.

“I am terrified of perfectionism as a concept. In the sense that, I know that I will do absolutely nothing if I worry about it too much. It is why my short films aren’t like generally these feature length things. They are these two minute pieces that I make in the span of five days. I think that is partly ‘I have an idea, I try the best I could within that time limit, realistically, and its done’. Because like, with this Fluxus thing that I just finished there is this sense that ‘I definitely could have done better’, you know? The idea that ‘ah you had all this time to complete it, it should be amazing. It should be one of the best things you have ever done’. And like, you know, that is not good for the soul is all I will say. It is not good for the soul.”

I also feel like my films have become milestones or bookmarks in my life. I can say ‘oh this happened between ‘liCe’ and ‘3 Seconds at Momus’’. It contextualises everything, tethering it all together. It does not matter if it is an idea I film on the day, or something that takes years, they have the same weight in this regard. When I do not release anything, it feels like my life is in limbo. When I do release something, it feels like the dread counter goes back down to zero. Making a film, and needing to hold onto it before releasing it broadly has been a very weird experience.

It was fun to be able to use some of the ‘Bones of Tyche’ behind the scenes footage in this. I was holding onto the footage for months, and being able to show some stuff early in a way that did not go against the contract was a bit invigorating.

This video is also when I invited Phaedra to come over. The ramifications of a quick decision are always fun.

“So what’s your next step in terms of travelling?”

Video 12 (Phaedra) 2025–07–05

Hard cuts to plane taking off. I love it.

Issues with travelling are so stressful. I have been denied at the border before (apparently you need an extra Visa to travel though Canada???). Also, when I had a South African passport, I was often taken to side rooms and questioned. They would put my passport in an acrylic case, and go through all my luggage. It sucks.

At the time, when I received this, there was a moment of ‘oh shit, this is real. We will see each other in person. This could be the end of the Communication project’. I never would have expected something so interesting when I originally reached out to Phaedra. This was a very cool chance event.

Also, it is interesting how hard we can be on ourselves. When Phaedra complimented my consistency with making things, this was during my biggest gap of inactivity in terms of experimental films. Rather than being like ‘aww that’s nice’, I was like ‘fuck fuck fuck I need to make something’.

Video 13 (Brandon) 2025–07–17

On the 9th of July, my dad (Gerald) came down from South Africa to hang out at ours for a few months. This was actually planned a bit in advance, but having Phaedra and Gerald both there at once was not thought about at all when I first invited either of them!

So, Isobel and I went into overdrive mode to make sure there was enough room for people to sleep, etc. June, July, and August 2025 is the 2nd most stressful time of my life so far I think, but I did not get a stroke, so that’s a positive overall!

By this point in the project, I had really grown to like the ‘Experimental Vlog’ style I was making. It really felt like ‘me’. The energy was right. It would be nice to do something like this again at some point in the future. Maybe another ‘communication’ project? Same thing with someone else? The same with Phaedra, but 5 years later? Talking to myself? Not sure. It is something worth re-examining in the future though.

“I think it is interesting, if you view this communication project as an experiment, right? We didn’t know much about each other at all in the beginning. Now it is kind of like… We did the corpse thing together, we talk to each other on social media, I watch all of your moments, every single moment of your life via your Instagram stories. And like… you are in the same country now. It’s kind of weird. It’s kind of interesting. It’s interesting that the experiment, quote unquote, is kind of contaminated. It’s not just a pure ‘the communications only through the films’.”

The idea that building a structure of communication in the beginning kind of falls to the wayside when more of a connection is formed. That is how friends I made I guess. People, going about their routine, going to the same place, doing things they enjoy. I wonder if this type of film project process could make anyone friends. If you had two people with very different political views, and you ‘made them’ communicate back and forth for a few months, would common ground be found? I think maybe. It would be interesting to explore.

Video 14 (Together) 2025–07–24 to 27

And then, we met. It was a lot of fun to have Phaedra over. She is very chill to be around. It’s funny how much more awkward it is to film a conversation in person, than it is to have one online! We had so many nice conversations, but we did not feel the need to film them, which is interesting.

This whole project has given me so much to chew on. What you share with others. What is too much? What do you want to be seen? Being your own PR… What is ‘true’ communication? Does there need to be a back-and-forth for balance to be found in every social dynamic? The inherent competition when it comes to communication. Doing a shared project, but wanting to make sure you look good compared to someone else, or not bad compared to them. Wanting to show off, but not scare someone away by putting too much effort in. The expectations of communication. Someone being comfortable, but not bored, or scared. There is a lot.

It is interesting that, at the end, this project moved from communication to observation. Open observation. Seeing and acknowledging. Removal of veneer. Putting on makeup. Picking up dog shit. How someone’s voice changes when comforting their partner, and the tone switch back that accompanies it. The face they make when eating. Communication of ‘I see you’. Letting someone be ‘seen’. Not only ‘seen’, but ‘remembered’.

I like that this project was not just Phaedra communicating with me, but about entering my life. She spoke a bunch to my wife, played with my dogs, and my dad still asks ‘how is her trip going’ on the regular. She is not just a node I am connected to, but is tied in the web of everything else. Now she is part of my project history too, and will be in the DNA of everything I make moving forward.

Thanks for doing this with me Madelen, it was fun.