Inemuri 2 Tutti

Note: this video was available on Vimeo in three segments, it is here in its original form.

Hubl Greiner and I came together through our respective work with Stepanida Borisova, a fabulous shaman singer from the Siberian Sakha Republic.
Hubl was working on his "Hulu Project," its "TranceSiberia" segment done with Stepanida, and I was working with Thierry Van Roy, on his magnificent "Taïga Maya" saga (with Melanie Gabriel: www.taigamaya.com/ and www.vimeo.com/29478079), in which Stepanida also plays a major role.
These "coincidences" led Hubl, Stepanida, Roman Bunka, Mohamed Badawi and I to doing a "shamanic music" concert in Beirut, Lebanon, during the "2008 Al Bustan Festival." (http://hubl.com/en/projects/stepanida.html and http:www.vudici.net/beirut/shaman_music_movie_1.html)
Hubl was kind enough to like the visual material I had prepared for that concert, and felt that those images would be suitable for his new album, "Inemuri."
From the moment I tested the images with his superb music, I was hooked, and that led to an intense period of work, trying to serve Hubl's and Luigi Archetti's music, while using, as source material, many photos taken by my son when he was not yet 8 years old, photos of the farm and area, in rural Ontario, where we lived at the time (more about that at the bottom of this text).
A few of the remaining photos were taken in Siberia by Thierry Van Roy, even less were taken by me, also mostly in rural Ontario and in Montréal.
The premise of "Inemuri" is very close to much of my work on perception ("what do I see before knowing what it is I am looking at?"), this shifting between "awake" and "asleep" states, between "reality" (whatever that is) and "dream."
I now understand better why these images, which worked well with the shamanic music performance (shifting between "real" and "magical") were felt by Hubl and Luigi to be equally at home in "Inemuri."

The film is dedicated to Fernand Bélanger.
Fernand was a film director who acted as editor of my first National Film Board of Canada film, "Liaisons" (2005).
www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=52499 and www.vudici.net/movies/ONF-NFB/Liaisons/Liaisons_excerpt_1.html (excerpt)
Memories of our conversations on "making time visible" and "film time" came up very often during the making of "Inemuri."

Here are Hubl's notes on his musical project:

"Inemuri"
Fragile sounds soake through the waking-sleeping senses of the passengers in a subway car somewhere in Japan, blending in with the ambient rhythms and creating the daywalking world of inemuri.
"Be present and sleep at the same time" – Inemuri is the art of taking a nap anywhere and anytime. Wedged into the crowd on the subway, sitting at the bar in a restaurant, or even during important business conferences: In Japan, the sight of people holding short and refreshing naps is anything but out of the common..."
Read more about this on Hubl's site: http://hulu.de/en/electronic_music/inemuri/inemuri.html