Synopsis
Kokoro can be translated as heart or loving feeling, but also refers to all human activities that affect the external world through intention, emotion and intellect. It describes both an organ and a spiritual relationship with the animate or inanimate other. Phillip Hoffman’s film Kokoro is for Heart explores the relationship between language, image and sound, against the backdrop of a gravel pit.
In the film, poet Gerry Shikatani makes visual and sonic gestures, sometimes approaching the lens, sometimes stepping outside the image… a stone… a feather, his poem floating in the various textures that reside in the space. The irregular yet rhythmic sound of the camera’s internal workings echoes Gerry’s phrasing and rephrasing. The film, based on the analogy between the elements filmed, the words and the visual silver material degraded by the film being badly run through the projector, creates a strange feeling of a materialization of colliding sonic “litho-words”.
