Video Poem “She” by Iris Fousteri

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Video Poem “She” by Iris Fousteri

Video Poem “She”

by Iris Fousteri

Summary

Artistic collaboration with Iris Fousteri
This article was originally published on the site in January 2020. Minor edits were made for its republication.

Introduction – Art and the Subconscious

With the artist and choreographer Iris Fousteri, we have shared an exceptionally fruitful artistic collaboration for almost seven years. It began with the soundtrack of the wonderful and deeply personal kaleidoscopic videos of her project This Is An Exorcism.
Within the context of this ongoing communication, Iris asked for my contribution to the deeply beloved video poem “She”, something that activated intense emotions and ideas for both of us.

Before analyzing the way the work evolved — through our collaboration as well as through the contribution of the Tarot cards — I consider it necessary to approach the way we communicate with the subconscious.

The primary means of this communication are dreams, psychotherapy, and Art. In the artistic process, we often unconsciously search for an idea, an image, or an emotion emerging from deep and dark layers of ourselves. It is as if we invite the subconscious to illuminate a hidden room — or even allow us to enter it ourselves. Yet within these rooms we often encounter concealed traumas, revealed through dreams or uncontrolled thoughts. Although the initial idea may excite us, what follows may frighten or sadden us, without us initially understanding why.

The “Spiritual Trap” and The Healing Art

There is also a spiritual trap here: for the artist to regard trauma or obsession as the fundamental source of inspiration, endlessly revisiting it to continue creating.
What is proposed instead is a healing approach to art. In this case, the artwork functions not as re-traumatization, but as a process of healing — helping the artist transcend fears and obsessions and rediscover love through creation.

Through a sequence of ideas and contact with the subconscious, with love as its final element, the artistic work can be experienced as healing. A fractal process, where the world activated by the initial idea gradually reveals itself — like a faint light emerging through darkness.

The Video Poem “She”

“She” is a characteristic example of this approach. Through the analysis of this specific collaboration, it becomes clear how the Tarot cards can function as a structural tool: helping us identify the center of a work, its truth, and express it in the most essential way possible, regardless of the means available to us.

The work belongs entirely to Iris herself; my contribution was limited to highlighting certain aspects and offering a dramaturgical understanding of its structure. Our conversations included personal experiences and emotions that emerged throughout the creative process.

Accompanying Text by the Artist

I dedicated “She” to my mother, whom I lost thirty years ago… (this is word by word translation of the poem. Not by chance a proper poetic translation).

My ghost is sitting on the balcony. Gazing at the sea.
The previous page rains upon the rose bushes.
The ghost smells the mushrooms beneath like a dog.
It has no eyes; instead, in their place, it has kept my old hands, and so certain fragments of the world preserve their former familiarity.
Like skin, the keyboard, hair, polished stones, wood.
The hands want to caress the face. The face cannot. It cannot because the face no longer exists. The hands are now the face; the face tries to touch itself. It fails. The hands are now the head.
The head used to enjoy thinking; now it cannot. The head can no longer think because it no longer exists. Only the hands remain; now the hands think.
Or they do something resembling what the old head once did when it thought. They put in and take out, add and subtract, give and receive, occupied endlessly in this composition — sometimes forever empty and sometimes eternally burdened…
The fingers are now the ones weaving stories. They untie and bind. They move without ever being held, they cannot be photographed, they bend and resemble eyes — hollow eyes that do not look yet still see, see and already know…
my intertwined fingers. Do not look at the ghost; it knows nothing.
Excerpt from a collection of thoughts written in 2017 under the title
THE LONELINESS OF ONE IS ENOUGH,
upon which the video poem “She” was based, later presented at the 8th International Video Poetry Festival.
The final English text was shaped collaboratively:
She / Silent / Staring the sea pages ago / Smelling the mushrooms under / In her eyes / My hands / The hands touch the face / Faceless she is / Headless thoughts of the mind / The hands a reminiscent of the old head / The hands / The eyes / Her hollow eyes / Look at her / She’s just a ghost

The Dramaturgical Contribution of Tarot

My own approach was based on three cards from the Major Arcana:

XIII - The Ghost – Fear – The Nameless Card

Card XIII is not death, but a work of purification. The ghost in the poem is a soul whose death has not yet been completed. The card invites us to look without fear — which is why the change in the last verse was proposed: to look at her (she is not a threat), she is simply a ghost. The blue heart hidden within the body of the card signifies that this work is carried out through love. And “She”, ultimately, is an act of love toward the mother.

Epilogue

Tarot helps us reach the core of our idea, clarify the message and emotion, enter our dark rooms, and confront our ghosts.
Let’s see them. Let us embrace them. Let us say goodbye to them.
Together with us, they too need redemption.

Especially dedicated to Iris, for the inspiration.

Video Poem “She” by Iris Fousteri