Converse

Xiaofu Ju

Film by Xiaofu JuFilmed in NY and NankingSpecial thanks for the Scene of Moiseiwitsch which was filmed from an interview. Music: Sviatoslav Richter plays J.S...

Artist Statement

A specific seriousness shrouds around art, something looming, permeating, and intangible. The art itself is beyond reproach of course, but the feelings of melancholy and somber it evinces can be burdensome. To achieve deepness in any art forms, the internalized process is inevitable, and it is far less an inferior choice than a simple external display. It is a way of negotiating with time, of how time can be internalized and how then an individual could have the honor to become a petite component of the time, the cosmos, and the eternity. The insufficiency of it among the public plunges itself to the abyss of incessant output, through which one is pushed further adrift from a complete self, becoming lost, disoriented, unseeing, and eventually, stifled in growth. From years of experience, I came to realize that the detachment to the world and its convenience is vital to avoid superficiality.

The short film ‘Converse’ works as a symbol of my internalization, however, the process of production is improvisatory. I tried not to constrain the audience’s imagination by avoiding graphic narrative logics throughout the film, yet its edge breaking for someone who studied the laws of music, following notations of others’ legacy for many years. Fortunately, I suffered by possessing a pool of inner wealth and tranquility, and the nutrified sense I obtained as a musician to have the ability to collage within myself, by sensing and creating forms of expressions other than music. A sheer division between spirituality and reality is my goal, and it serves me well. My poems are dwellers of the reality aspect, and my music is the spirituality counterpart, yet vice versa. To me, poetry would grasp a foothold in the volatile world, mirroring my internalization from any circumstances. The music would speak directly to the spiritual, the sanctuary of the utter pristine—of life, solitude, surreal world of fastidious creation, and so much more. Here I am the architect, showcasing an ideal world of my solitude. Here the film shows a corner of the ensemble of my total appreciation.

Applying a scene of pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch in the end of the film, who talked about spacious elements in Rachmaninov’s favorite preludes, raises a question of grand styles in the continuity of time and mirrored eternity. As one of the representatives in the Golden Age (Late 19th century through 1970s), Moiseiwitsch and other masters played in an avant-garde gesture at the time. The general appreciation now has gone to a less interesting and diversified level caused by the rising industry of competitions and the impact of the American conservatories, which made people create arts from a certain constrain of standards which guarantee a potential success in reality, yet a potential danger to one’s artistry. However, does the style of the past generations belong to this era, even at least in its forms?

But everything has limits, and the path would wind from time to time. After a while, there is the inevitable presence of a waning spiritual affluence and a waxing vexation of stagnation. Gradually and indubitably, my path steers to an affirmed choice: that I shall, through a continued journey of acquainting the untraversed and even the unfathomable like many of my absent ancestors, see to it that my art is inspiring, mesmerizing, catching a color of grandeur, and touching at least a shade of transcendence, as the final determination of life and artistry would be descended only in the last moments.