O Vento Uiva, ouça

The Wind Howl, listen

My commentary

To celebrate Flusser's 100th anniversary at an online event, I chose a simple video based on the deep impression left by an episode of my experience as his assistant. I had the collaboration of Monai de Paula Antunes, art researcher, collaborator of Vilém Flusser Archiv, Berlin, and it was all done by cell phone resources, overcoming the distances that separated us.
The ensemble to which I gave the title O Vento Uiva, ouça (The Wind Howl, listen), is composed of Declaration; Poetic manifestation over reading of Vento (Wind) excerpt and Finale.

_{Gabriel Borba, 2020}

Declaration

I worked with Flusser for a few years. I was his assistant. At the time he used to ask me to read aloud what he was writing. On one occasion, he asked me to read the article Ventos –Winds- which is in the book Natural: Mind. But he complained that I was reading too fast. I resumed slowly and concentrated. I immersed myself in the text, felt the wind in its variants and, at a certain point, a few lines touched me. I tried hard not to be noticed. One more page to the end, I read the last quote “this is all the wisdom I can reap: I came like water, and like Wind I go”. I lowered the book, raised my eye and realized that something was changed

Text under Poetic manifestation

“... the wind howls, that is, it speaks. So it’s not a thing. Things don't speak. The wind is not a thing; it is someone to whom I must respond, it is a you who calls me to be me. Because it is a you, the wind cannot be imagined, conceived, known and manipulated. It must be heard, received, reconized and followed. When wind is imagined, conceived, known and manipulated, as it is in technique and theory, it stops being wind and becomes air movement, it is “objectified”. And the wind is not an object: it is my Other. It is not; exists. That is why Buber says: “God is not: I believe in Him”. And Angelus Silesius ”Ich weis dass ohne mich Gott nicht ein Nu kann leben”  = I know that without me God cannot live even an instant. The wind is wind for me, if I allow it to be wind. And if I don't allow it, it will be air movement, not wind. If it doesn't allow to be wind, it will be aerodynamics problem partially solved. But if I allow it to be wind, it will be enigma. If I don't allow it to be wind, it will lose its voice, and it will become vibration in manipulable decibels.  It will be mute. But now, on this night that surrounds my house with desperate fury, the wind speaks. Because I am willing to listen to it. That is why the prayer that says “Chemá Israel, JHVH elohenu JHVH ekhád” (listen, fighter for God, JHVH is our God, JHVH is one), is a prayer, not an indicative statement. It says: “listen!”. The wind that surrounds my house with desperate fury indicates nothing, it reigns. If I allow it. That is its message. Despite all the interference, I still receive it on nights like this

Finale

"and this is all the wisdom I can reap: I came like water and like wind I go"