Issuu

The Measures 16mm transferred to HDCAM, color, sound, 46 minutes, 2014 A film by Jacqueline Goss and Jenny Perlin https://vimeo.com/97236946

Jacqueline Goss and Jenny Perlin retrace the journey of Pierre Méchain and JeanBaptiste Delambre, two 18th-century astronomers tasked with determining the true length of the meter. From the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel, The Measures explores the metric system’s origins during the violence and upheavals of the French Revolution. Along the way, Goss and Perlin consider the intertwining of political and personal turmoil, the failures of standardization, and the subtleties of collaboration.

Dunkerque

The Measures

Amiens Laon

Support for the publication of The Measures provided by Bard College, Wave Farm, New York State Council on the Arts Media Arts Assistance Fund, The Cooper Union, Simon Preston Gallery

Saint-Denis Paris Belle-Assise Bruyéres le Châtel Lieusaint Melun

Orléans

The Measures is distributed by Video Data Bank, Chicago

Bourges

Evaux

Designed by Antonia Terhedebrügge and Sarah Baumann at the Institute for Book Design and Media Development at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, direction Prof. Uli Cluss Printed by Offizin Scheufele Stuttgart

Everything ok? You remind me of Me with your silence… Puy Violene

Rodez

Saint Pons Pie de Nore Carcassonne Mont Bugarach Salses Perpignan Puig de l’Estrella Puy Camellas

Montserrat Barcelona Mont-Jouy

Lines of triangulation

Dunkerque

Meridian of Paris Selected measuring points of Méchain and Delambre Travel route of Perlin and Goss

Amiens Laon Saint-Denis Paris Belle-Assise Bruyéres le Châtel Lieusaint Melun

Orléans

Bourges

Evaux

Puy Violene

Rodez

Saint Pons Pie de Nore Carcassonne Mont Bugarach Salses Perpignan Puig de l’Estrella Puy Camellas Montserrat Barcelona Mont-Jouy

The Measures

Daniel Rosenberg In the Scale of Toises

Among the defining images of the late Enlightenment are the diagrams created in the 1790s by the French scientists Pierre Méchain and JeanBaptiste Delambre of the meridian line stretching from Dunkirk in the north to Barcelona in the south, across the territory of France. Published in the 1806 Base du système métrique décimal, ou Mesure de l‘arc du méridien compris entre les parallèles de Dunkerque et Barcelone, the diagrams are spare, reducing the delirious labor that went into producing them to a simple, rational arrangement.1 The diagrams show a vertical line running from the northern tip of France south to Barcelona, crisscrossed by a “chain of triangles” joining geographic high points used for sighting in the seven-year surveying project. Over and over, these triangles intersect. From Dunkirk, Méchain and Delambre’s northernmost reckoning point, measurement lines stretch southwest to Gravelines and to Watten and southeast to Cassel. Gravelines and Watten are themselves connected in an independent triangle, as are Watten and Cassel. At center is the meridian line itself. The center line, of course, is virtual. Neither Méchain nor Delambre, nor anyone since, has walked that line, figured beautifully in The Measures by Jenny Perlin and Jacqueline Goss, as the line between two persistent side-byside video frames. The point of the parallel expeditions of Méchain to the south of Paris and Delambre to the north, was to establish the length of the meridian line in France by triangulation, and from this the earth’s meridional circumference, and from this, a standard upon which a new universal measure, the meter, would be based.

Before modern tools such as satellite imaging and GPS, the meridian itself could not be directly traced. Instead, using the bleeding-edge technology of the day, a dual optic apparatus called Borda’s repeating circle—echoed again in the distinctive dual-camera approach of Perlin and Goss—Méchain and Delambre were able to measure a line that could neither be seen nor walked. 2 The immediate product of this work was a measured meridian, a known fraction of the Earth‘s circumference. The derivative product, and the rationale for the project, was a new standard measure, the meter, one tenmillionth of the circumference of the globe as established by Méchain and Delambre’s study, a new kind of measure, one said to be based in nature and reason rather than history and convention. 3 It was on with the meter and off with the king’s foot. 3

And so, it is especially notable that Méchain and Delambre’s diagram gives its scale in toises. What is a toise? According to the Encyclopédie (1751–65) of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, the most important reference work of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, it is not one thing at all. 4And this was a key rationale for the innovation of the meter. The toise, write the Encyclopedists, is “a measure of different sizes according to the places where it is in use. That of Paris, which is in use in several other cities in the kingdom, equals six piés de roi (pieds de roi). Its original and standard measure is at the Châtelet in Paris, which is why we refer to this as the toise du châtelet.” Toise was also the name of a measuring instrument. According to the seventeenth-century etymologist, Gilles Ménage, the word toise continues to resonate with its root meaning from the Latin tensus or tensed cord. The rest of the entry in the Encyclopédie could easily be mistaken for humor. Several toises are defined. There are, among others, a toise d’échantillon, which is defined as “the toise such as it is employed in each place in which one is taking measurements, when it is different from that of Paris, as for example in the toise de Bourgogne which is seven and a half feet” and the toise de roi, which, though identical to the toise de Paris, is defined separately as the toise used by the king in all of his works and fortifications regardless of whether or not they are in Paris. Colloquially, toise was something else again. According to the 1798 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, to call an affair toisé was to assert that it had ended so badly that it was no longer to be spoken of: “On dit figurément et populairement, qu‘une affaire est toisée, pour, qu‘elle est terminée désavantageusement, sans espérance de retour. C‘est une affaire toisée, il n‘en faut plus parler. Cela est toisé.”5 As Littré points out, in Jean Racine’s 1668 Les Plaideurs (The Litigants), absurdly long words are “des mots longs d’une toise.” To measure a person by “toise” is to take into account only their superficial appearances. Proverbially, “On ne mesure pas les hommes à la toise, c‘est par leur mérite qu‘il faut les apprécier.” 6 “Mesurer les autres à sa toise,” is to judge others in comparison to oneself. On the other hand, “se mesurer à sa toise,” is to know one’s own station. In Jean-François Regnard’s 1696 Le Joueur (The Gamer), for example, “Oh! monsieur, point du tout, je suis une bourgeoise qui sais me mesurer justement à ma toise.” According to the French Academy, until the 1930s, one could still use the adjective toisé to mean “measured”; after that, one said, métré instead. 7 One can easily understand why the French academies wanted a meter. Not only was measurement of length not standardized, as idea and practice, measurement by toise was at war with itself. Upon what grounds could the statement be made that the toise de Bourgogne was equivalent to seven and a half pieds de roi? If the regulating standard for the toise were lost, unavailable, or contested, how could the matter be resolved? The Enlightenment was mad for new kinds of standardization: from handwriting to timekeeping, uniformity was highly esteemed. And, of course, this

is one of the aspects of the Enlightenment most questioned by its successors. As prosecuted by the French Revolution, some standardizations took on a militant form. Not only was a metric system created for measuring things, even time was recast. The revolutionary hours were ten rather than twentyfour. Each of these was divided into one hundred minutes of one hundred seconds. So, too, were the months of the year reformed: each was now thirty days (festival days at year‘s end accounted for the difference) divided into three weeks of ten days each. Now their names derived from natural phenomena (wind, heat, and so forth) rather than pagan gods. 22 September 1792 was declared the start of the revolutionary era, the new Year I. The toise scale at the center of Méchain and Delambre’s diagram is both a practical and a theoretical gesture. From a practical point of view, it gives the reader familiar with traditional measures some notion of the size of the new meter. It is roughly half of a toise du châtelet. At the same time—and it is of note that the diagram does not bother to specify which toise is intended— the diagram neatly suggests why the project of defining the meter matters in the first place, because the toise, as the Encyclopédie says, is “a measure of different sizes.” And yet, the toise at the center of the diagram presents an intriguing problem as well. The crucial fault of the old system was the lack of universal standard. In a hundred different areas, thinkers from the period found similar problems. The most dramatic was that of language itself, and there was no shortage of universal language schemes during the period. While the toise on the diagram might have had an entirely arbitrary origin, it could also have served well enough, if only there had been some way of asserting it uniformly. There were many benefits to bringing exacting scholarly attention to the size of the Earth. Still, the fundamental problem with the toise lay not in the precise measure of the geoid but in inconsistency of available standards and in the difficulty of replicating measures. The question of whether systems of representation (ranging from common language to specialized scientific measures) should be based in nature had been widely discussed during the Enlightenment. In the matter of language, for example, there were those who claimed that all words are originally onomatopoeic. We have the world “bark” because it sounds like the bark of a dog. To the Encyclopedists, the more persuasive thesis was that words mean what they mean because we agree that they do. In the article “Étymologie” in the Encyclopédie, the philosopher Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot made the case in a story about the world “falbala,” a kind of ruffle that had been fashionable early in the century. According to Turgot’s story, a prince, walking through the Palais Royal stopped to ask a vendor the name of some folded ribbon. Stupefied, she uttered the nonsense world “falbala.” The prince repeated the word at court, and so the name was set and spread. A third position in some ways blended the first two. Words and other standards might be conventional or arbitrary, but, for this very reason, they 5

could be remade in a form more distinguished or useful. In the area of language, this had been the great dream of the seventeenth-century philosophers including John Wilkins in England, who had proposed a new universal language in which all words were built up from primitive roots established according to a great classification system. And great it was. Because it required analysis and classification of everything in the world, in a sense, it took Wilkins everywhere. Many projects of the sort proposed by Wilkins were rejected as folly by Enlightenment philosophers. As d’Alembert argued in the Encyclopédie, systematic thinking rather than system-building was the goal of enlightened philosophy. There were exceptions, of course. Lavoisier’s system of chemical nomenclature is one of the most famous examples. In so many other cases, the philosophes worried about creating from whole cloth. The revolutionaries, of course, saw things differently: whole cloth was the very idea. It may be noted that in 1668 Wilkins himself entertained and rejected the premise of Méchain and Delambre’s project as “impracticable.” 8 To make the meridian line and then the meter, one had to go places. And here is another wonderful resonance between the practice of the filmmakers and that of the savants it depicts between the lines. You make the meridian by going elsewhere. The entirety of The Measures crisscrosses through this observation. Two filmmakers, two cameras, so many locations. Frames nearly aligned, never quite. Getting to the meter was a process of massive redundancy. The repeating circle is already redundant by design. Moreover, measurements made with it were coordinated with external references including celestial observations and data from the second surveyor.

As the filmmakers explain in their voiceovers, the trials that Méchain and Delambre suffered along the way to making the meter were enormous and historically significant. Their work coincided with the course of the French Revolution. They were often obstructed, sometimes threatened and detained. During the Terror, Méchain was arrested and dispossessed. Famously, the church spires they intended to use as reference points were dismantled even as they proceeded. As the Revolution convulsed repeatedly, the institutions authorizing their work came and went, and the future of the project was constantly in doubt. Yet, even had it been carried out during calmer times, there is something fundamentally eccentric about what Méchain and Delambre were up to. The places Méchain and Delambre visited were, in an important way, arbitrary. Of course, there were practical reasons for selecting each, but these choices could have been different. The observation points have meaning only in relation to one another. They form a network. And, anyone from our century who looks at Méchain and Delambre’s diagram is likely to make this observation first. We see our world in networks, as in the footage Perlin and Goss offer of a wifi-enabled McDonald‘s in the provincial French city of

Perpignan, where Delambre completed work on the southern baseline for the project. The Enlightenment understood the networked nature of its world, but its visioning of this network was flickering.

There were contemporary efforts at diagramming networks of various sorts.9 Among the most popular visualizations of complex relationality in this period was the cladistic tree. Though this kind of visualization had been around for a long time—family trees date to the Middle Ages, trees of knowledge to the sixteenth century—the tree form played a special role in Enlightenment epistemology as evidenced by its use in the Systême figuré des connoissances humaines, the famous tree diagram that appears in the “Preliminary Discourse” to the Encyclopédie, where it served as a model of models, a representation of the relationships among the many fields of knowing represented in the Encyclopédie themselves.10 Later in the century, new diagrammatic systems including the timeline, bar graph, line graph, and pie chart were developed. In general, the eighteenth century was a period of great innovation in systems of graphic display and notation. It was also, as Dror Wahrman and Jonathan Sheehan have argued, a period of great interest in the complexity and interdependence of phenomena.11 In the Systême figuré, the Encyclopedists lay out the different fields of human knowledge according to a tree structure. There are many reasons why the Systême figuré mattered so much in its time. It was encyclopedic. It showed how the kind of radical empiricism proposed in the Encyclopédie could produce orderly and rational results. It was a kind of map, though the territory it surveyed was theoretical. D’Alembert likened his tree of knowledge to a mappemonde. It was a universal map. At the same time, it embodied a particular perspective. It was a heuristic, a “projection,” and at a theoretical level, there was nothing one could do to make it perfect or complete. It was a map of engagement, a depiction of where the philosophes wished to go. The other limitation in that diagram lies in its form. And the Encyclopedists knew this very well. It is one of the core subjects of the “Preliminary Discourse.” The Systême figuré is a tree, but the Encyclopédie is a network. There are many ways in which this is the case, but it is embodied technically in a device that the Encyclopedists call a renvois. To us, it is a “cross-reference” or a “link.” The Encyclopedists produced no network diagrams for their Encyclopédie. It was left to twentieth-century scholars such as Mark Olsen and Gilles Blanchard of the ARTFL Project to do that, and the results were remarkable. They also make a telling contrast with the eighteenth-century ways of envisioning the same relationships. As a network, the Encyclopédie is every bit as complex and also every bit as regular as a thoughtfully designed electronic system.12 And the Systême figuré remains a vibrant and effective representation of the intellectual approach of the Encyclopedists. In effect, it is the imaginary meridian of the 7

work. Like the meridian line of Méchain and Delambre, it is perfectly fictional and at the same time perfectly real. The renvois in the Encyclopédie is a relation not an object: it is where it takes you. A renvois can take the reader from one branch of the encyclopedic tree to another by a jump. Such jumps—were the Encyclopédie a film, we would call them “cuts”—reflect lively connections among ideas that the tree itself cannot represent. In some instances, the effect of the jump is subtle; in others, as in those the editors refer to as a “satirical or epigrammatic,” it is jarring and makes us aware of the hand of the editor in the product. In a sense, the meridian of Méchain and Delambre is nothing more than a series of links, or again, cinematically, a series of cuts. The chaine des triangles diagram layers two systems, one of seeing and one of envisioning. Together, they tell a story like the one in The Measures that does not read simply from end to end. In our own day, many of us underestimate the importance of physical place in the networks that matter to us. Device of abstraction and standardization par excellence, the meter is nonetheless difficult to extricate from the particular history through which it came to be. This fact troubled Pierre Méchain especially, and it is said that it eventually drove him mad. There, in the diagrams that are both an emblem of the project and the era, it is ever visible in the scale of toises.

1 Jean-Baptiste Delambre and Pierre Méchain, Base du système métrique décimal, ou Mesure

de l‘arc du méridien compris entre les parallèles de Dunkerque et Barcelone (Paris: Baudouin, 1806–10). 2 See Jean-Dominique Cassini, Pierre Méchain, and Adrien-Marie Legendre, Exposé des operations faites en France en 1787 pour la jonction des observatoires de Paris et de Greenwich (Paris: Institution des Sourds-Muets, 1790). 3 Ken Alder, The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002). 4 Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, eds., Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Briasson, et. al., 1751–65). 5 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 5th edn., (Paris, 1798). Historical dictionaries accessed via ARTFL Dictionnaires d’autrefois (27 June 2016) http://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/node/17. 6 Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française (Paris, 1872–7). 7 Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, 8th edn., (Paris, 1932–5). 8 John Wilkins, Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (London: 1668), 191. 9 Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton, Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010). 1 0 Daniel Rosenberg, “An Eighteenth-Century Time Machine: The Encyclopédie of Diderot,” in Daniel Gordon, ed. Postmodernism and the Enlightenment (New York: Routledge, 2000). 1 1 Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman, Invisible Hands: Self-Organization and the Eighteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 12 Gilles Blanchard and Mark Olsen, “Le système de renvois dans l’Encyclopédie:Une cartographie des structures de connaissances au XVIIIe siècle,” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie, 31–2 (October 3, 2015). URL: http://rde.revues.org/122. Accessed September 9, 2016.

The first of four plates from Pierre Méchain and JeanBaptiste Delambre, Base du système métrique décimal, ou Mesure de l‘arc du méridien compris entre les parallèles de Dunkerque et Barcelone (1806–10) illustrating the “Chaine des triangles de Dunkerque à Barcelone” from north to south. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Diagram of a repeating circle, from Jacques Cassini, Pierre Méchain, and Adrien-Marie Legendre, Exposé des opérations faites en France (1790). Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Detail from Méchain and Delambre, Base du système métrique decimal, showing the scale of toises. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

“Systême figuré des connoissances humaines” from Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Encyclopédie (1751–65). Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Plate from Méchain and Delambre, Base du système métrique decimal, diagramming triangulation points and including an image of the Tour de Bourges. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Network diagram of renvois in the Encyclopédie. Courtesy of Mark Olsen and Gilles Blanchard.

They’re called savants: Those who know. Their experiments unfold before crowds of commoners, clergy and kings. It’s the year 1791 in France and there are over 250,000 different ways to measure things. The savants invent a new simple objective system: one taken from the earth’s constancy and based on the number ten. This will be the meter: a length measuring one ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator. The Academy appoints two savants to measure the distance from the English Channel to the Mediterranean. Jean Baptiste Delambre will measure the north and Pierre Méchain will take the south. They will meet in the city of Rodez. Using two rotating telescopes stacked vertically and mounted on a tripod, each man triangulates his way back to the other. They think it will take a year. It takes seven.

Farewell my dear colleague Méchain. I wish you health, fortitude and patience. D —

Monsieur Delambre, I look forward to meeting you in Rodez, for that day will mark an epoch in both our lives. M —

j@nilrep.net – 9/11/12 Hi jackie goss I have read the first pages and it is amazing. Of course I am already drawn to being the southern traveler, perhaps because of my swarthy complexion and penchant for messiness. But we can flip a coin. jxgoss@gmail.com – 3/22/13 Gotcha. Here’s more info: I found a pretty good rate for flying into Barcelona and OUT of Brussels (getting to BAR on June 1st and leaving June 7th. I think this might work with this as a possible itinerary (places we might likely sleep are listed with potential stop during the day in parentheses. Will you check and see what you think about this? I’m also trying to figure out car vs. train and wonder if you might know more than me about this. when I did that other trip the car was a pain in the ass, largely because I was by myself (but not entirely). Trains would be lovely but maybe a lot more money? Any maybe we couldn’t get to every place we want to fast enough? What you think? Here’s a possible itinerary: 6/1 meet in barcelona 6/2 montserrat 6/3 rodez (evaux?, bourges? orleans?) 6/4 paris (st denis, laon? amiens?) 6/5 dunkerque 6/6 fly out of Brussels j@nilrep.net – 3/23/13 Hi JG. That sounds really good to me. I think I would have to be back in Berlin 7th June, prob in the morning. Do you think we will have time to do all this? I would be so excited … Car vs. train: I bet train is lovely but more money and probably

slower. However, I have not ever driven in western europe (e. Europe yes but that’s another story). Should I look at train/bus schedules?

This is where Méchain starts: Barcelona. This is a city of brightness, a town with harbor and mountain, a place that hides its industry.

jxgoss@gmail.com – 3/22/13 Hey Jenny, I’m going to buy thisticket May 31-June 7 (land in BAR, leave from BRU). Will buy later today. Last chance to bail out! JG j@nilrep.net – 3/24/13 Hurrah! Then I will look at tix for me and how the hell we will get around. And talk tech. I have a few friends in france maybe I should contact if they live close to our destinations and we can stay with them? Whatever happens we will eat well! jxgoss@gmail.com – 3/24/13 Cool! Hey Jenny, check this out too: http://www.autoeurope.com/car.cfm – It looks like it COULD be cheap. I’ll ask around too for people to stay with -- that could be very nice. j@nilrep.net – 3/24/13 Ok and we should talk tech, right/ I have a panasonic hpx 170 p2 camera and sachtler tripod and some mikes. But … ? jxgoss@gmail.com – 3/24/13 I’m game for anything. I was also thinking we could consider film. I could get a Bolex or two from Bard and could front $ for film stock and processing. j@nilrep.net – 3/24/13 I heart film. got bolex here too. ******* jxgoss@gmail.com – 3/25/13 Part of the film interest for me is all the measuring involved and combo of millimeters and feet. Also, very practically, I think the world would be

more interested in seeing (and displaying!) something on film. Two projected images each a meter wide? Stacked vertically? Just riffing … j@nilrep.net – 4/6/13 Can you send me your exact flight details? I want to try to coordinate … Also, what do you think is the best way to proceed? Set up a crazy timetable for where & when, or conceptual deep thinking about aesthetics? Reread the section about saint-denis yesterday. Crazy shit. jxgoss@gmail.com – 4/6/13 Hi Jenny -- I come into Barcelona on the morning of the 1st and leave Brussels on the morning of the 7th. what about drop off in Brussels? Does it get really expensive to drop off in another country? I like your schedule. The only other places I thought about near Rodez are St Pons (where M. holed up for so long and wouldn’t come down) straight road is that D measured (Humboldt was there watching). Evaux des Bains is a weird town with hot springs … j@nilrep.net – 4/7/13 Yes that was the place, St. Pons! Rather than Rodez. Melun could also look great. Will look up where it is. The train thing looks like a pain, More soon jxgoss@gmail.com – 4/29/13 hey Jenny, I’m going to order our film this week! I was thinking a mix of 500T and 250D (maybe more of the former). Will you double check that this is what I want to get? 500T and 250D 16mm 100’ rolls on a CORE right?

j@nilrep.net – 4/29/13 not on core on daylight spools! that is the only way 100 feet rolls come. tell me about your bolex lenses and you have a regular bolex right? Want to skype tonight? j@nilrep.net – 4/29/13 double checking you have regular bolex without external magazine right? Want to send me a photo of what it looks like? regular kind of bolex? jxgoss@gmail.com – 4/29/13 haha! of course spool. no external magazine. the usual bolex. I’m going to order to two rolls today to practice with. j@nilrep.net – 4/30/13 marvelous! do u have filter? it is so fun j@nilrep.net – 5/2/13 Hi Jackie, Here are some notes within the itinerary. Also we have not talked about budget. I am looking at Air bnb for Barcelona and then hotels in Perpignan they are pretty reasonable. Before I book, the barcelona air bnb is 70 euros a nite for small apartment that we would be comfortable in I think. Both apartments are near mont juich. Do you want me to book train tickets to perpignan or should we just decide that once we are in barcelona and see how we feel? I’m going to get my plane ticket tomorrow (money just came in) and either take bus back to berlin or train. What time do you leave Paris for Brussels? Or did I ask you that already? If the drive from Rodez to Dunkerque is too insane we can also think about another way of organizing it. Not sure. But I do want to get the

hotels and tickets booked this week which is I guess tomorrow? I think we could play some of these things by ear but not the hotels obviously. Let me know what you think about the June 2 thoughts (see below)

have the info before we travel to Barcelona. My biggest concern is timing in countries other than Germany, in that I fear that things simply take longer to do in Spain so one should leave lots of extra time. And of course I am concerned for you with jetlag and such.

ALSO tripods? What are you

bringing? I have a huge Sachtler that is really nice. What do you think? Tell me more. Hugs Jenny j@nilrep.net – 5/5/13 Hi JG this looks amazing. Thank you! I’ve included my thoughts in your email below. Question: by chance did you reserve an automatic car? 1. I am still looking at the long drive from Rodez to Dunkirk on the 4th and thinking instead we could stay the night of the 3rd in Evaux les Bains instead of Rodez. That takes pressure off the driving on the 4th but means we have a real busy day (plus 4-5 hours driving) on the 3rd. Can’t decide. What do you think? I’ve attached a rough itinerary if it helps you see it all. ** yes let’s stay in Evaux on the 3rd. That makes sense. Worst case scenario we skip Rodez? …hate to miss it. 2. Because I’m train ignorant, do you mind being in charge of train stuff to/from Barcelona/ Monserrat/Perpignan? It seems like we could arrange it once we’re in Barcelona, but I don’t know these things! *** I love doing the train stuff i could do it every day. I’ll check with Guillem if I should reserve the Barcelona to Perpignan train online before or if we can do it there. Montserrat travel seems very simple and I’ll make sure we

3. If you wanted to reserve the room in Barcelona with Guillem on the 31st I think that would be GREAT because, selfishly, I’d have a place to dump stuff when I arrive. (Still worried about train travel with all of our crap, but we’ll talk about that later.) ***I wrote Guillem about the early arrival time and he can let us check in in the morning. Either I’ll reserve the 31st with him and pay for it or I’ll find some other place to stay the 31st and he said he could meet me as early as 9:30 am so I can just do that and you can come there. We can figure out about our stuff, either leave at Guillem’s or put the non-valuables in a locker at train station? We do have to be very mindful of pickpockets wherever we travel. 4. Do you have any leads on Paris crash pads for us on the 5th and me on the 6th? I’ll ask around too, but will turn to airbnb soon if it seems unlikely! *** I wrote two friends about Paris but haven’t heard back. Should we wait til the end of the week? I just wrote them a couple of days ago. *** I’m a little concerned about the whole car thing in Paris + St Denis etc. Apparently St Denis is a pretty rough suburb now. Will try to get more info. OK -- let me know your answers / thoughts and I’ll finish up the reservations!

jxgoss@gmail.com – 5/13/13 Hi Jenny, Here are some thoughts about possible ways to proceed: 1. Wherever we go, one person is ON and shoots a landscape/ building/exterior image and the other person shoots whatever they want. 2. We both shoot a landscape building/exterior but we choose whatever composition, stock, and lens we want. 3. One person documents the other person shooting 4. When we get back we make a second “channel” that is animated or hand-drawn. Things that stay interesting to me: the idea of collaboration, downtime and “on” time the fact that subjectivity and human error can never be excised (the difference between precision and accuracy) --how epic, absurd, and optimistic this venture was – that the meter is global but invisible --- the story of méchain and delambre – the differences between M and D and the differences between you and me the idea that the landscape held the answer for M and D and they just had to find it j@nilrep.net – 5/15/13 Hi JG , thoughts: I like idea of being “on”or “off” and the possibility of distraction (visual) in the space. I prefer not to be filmed, in general, but let’s say that’s an option but not a rule (if the other person who is ‘off’ wants to do it she can). I think both of us shooting landscape/building is of course structurally excellent and clear but may not be so interesting to look at. Though this was my first idea as well. I think the project can be a little messy around the edges

as long as we have our i’s dotted or whatever they say. --- Am absolutely open to animated/hand-drawn channel if it feels right/necessary. Question: how much historical/ documentary information do we want to try to capture visually in the project while we are shooting? (location indicators, signage, etc) Or are we going to go for sites landscapes) and explore only visually what is there or nearby. We can also try to come up with some visual signifiers that relate to the history and film with that in mind (ie steeples, things that look like observation towers, perspectival treelined allees, triangles, giant displays of cheese (ok that last one is just a personal desire). My feeling is I want to pare down my own visual desires which would result in making the project look random. re: post - i’m not completely con-vinced that a full-length style voiceover is the right thing. Because it’s so often done, and while we don’t have to make that postproduction decision right away I do want to say that; in which case I am interested in having some visual markers of place & history & motivation seep into the imagery. Of course this pulls the project more into documentary and that is also not what I think we are after. But I hope it can have a somewhat more open weave than a full-length VO might indicate. Feeling unsure about this but wanted to write it as it comes to me now. Your ideas about what is interesting are also interesting to me. I hadn’t thought about down

time and on time at all. i love all your ideas. For personal reasons the things that are also interesting to me are: M’s desire to disappear/escape/become invisible (and how that is no longer possible in this day and age)

Méchain builds a tower on the fortress of Montjuich to look north and make his first side of a triangle. Méchain settles in here for months of stargazing. And these early observations will seal his fate.

how a site does or doesn’t retain residue of its history (and the romantic imposition of that history in hindsight) --arbitrariness of measurement then and also now --- fascination about tension between the old ways and the new (the hundreds of measurement types in the ancien regime etc) and that nothing is fixed; it’s all negotiated (meter) and cheese. --- HUGS! Jenny j@nilrep.net – 5/30/13 Definitely go to La Boqueria for tapas. The Tapas stall near the front is called Universal and has amazing fish (and everything for that matter). It’s a favorite of my friend who is from Barcelona. The Barcolenta neighborhood has some great beach front cafes/ restaurants for afternoon sangria and nibbles (more tapas of course). Of course the usual visits to La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell are a must, and La Pedrera has a lovely cafe.

20:09 min

00:23 min Tivoli, New York

04:44 min Barcelona, Spain

03:27 min Brooklyn, New York

04:55 min Barcelona, Spain

06:48 min

06:56 min

Hereâ€™s what he does: geometry tells him if he knows the actual length of one side of a triangle, and all three of its angles, he can determine the lengths of the other two sides without having to measure them physically. And once he has this triangle measured, he can build another off one of its sides. And another and another. He calls these telescopes his repeating circles, and he focuses on two points in the distance: he sites point A and then point B. He measures the angle between top and bottom lenses, measures this angle again, and again. And then he checks the precision of his work against the stars. In this way MĂŠchain and Delambre slowly measure the spine of France.

05:38 min Barcelona, Spain

02:04 min Tivoli, New York

01:45 min Tivoli, New York

October 1792. Méchain’s at the top of a mountain in Spain. Montserrat, the ‘serrated mountain.’ There’s a gorgeous abbey, church, music school, a publishing house.

07:34 min Montserrat, Spain

08:02 min Montserrat, Spain

08:06 min Montserrat, Spain

06:08 min Barcelona, Spain

07:06 min Paris, France

Méchain’s drawing imaginary lines from peak to peak with the repeating circles, sleeping comfortably in a bed at night. The French Revolution begins but he’s far away, up high, knowing this is the first of many stations he’ll measure and if it goes this well, he’ll surely be home in a year. Émine, mesure officielle, émine de Dijon, d’Auxonne, de St Jean de Losne, de Seurre, Verdun, Chalun, Chagny, Argilly, Nolay and more. Measures of grain. They’re all different. Close, but not the same. Then there are the salt measures; the liquid measures. Muids, quarts, pintes veltes, bouteilles, possons, roquilles, chauveaus, tonneaus and verres. Trade’s chaotic.

08:44 min Brooklyn, New York

08:54 min Brooklyn, New York

09:06 min Brooklyn, New York

09:21 min Brooklyn, New York

08:16 min Montserrat, Spain

09:28 min Saint-Denis, France

A woman is given an acre of land to sow and harvest. Her acre is larger than her neighborâ€™s because hers is more difficult terrain.

A man goes from his town to the next village. He is asked how far he has traveled. He says it took the better part of a day.

March 1793. MĂŠchain is almost killed when he takes a day trip with a friend to see the latest technology in Spanish water pumps.

I am unable to write this letter myself and may lack coherence because I was badly injured two weeks ago. M —

Monsieur, I heard of your misadventures and I felt for you — D —

A lever from the pump snaps and crushes Méchain against a wall. He spends six months recovering in a hotel in Barcelona. Fighting breaks out in the Pyrenees – Spain orders all French to leave the country. Back in Barcelona, Méchain writes letter after letter to the powers that be, asking permission to be where he already is. Mizar’s the name of the star. It doesn’t make sense, it does whatever it wants, however it wants.

10:43 min

MĂŠchain canâ€™t stop calculating. After his accident, stuck in the hotel, he measures the latitude of Montjuich again from his roof, using six different stars. Five give him nearperfect unity: he has located himself on earth to within a few feet. Then he turns to the sixth, Mizar: and this sixth star knocks him off his axis. All his numbers fail.

11:00 min Barcelona, Spain

Méchain asks to go back to the fortress to measure again. But permission is denied. To compensate, he makes ten thousand measurements from the roof of his hotel, but the mistake doesn’t go away. Everything’s thrown off by this one star. Méchain’s time is up. The clear waters of expertise are poisoned by the star Mizar.

I regret that I ever observed that star. It has caused me nothing but despair and disappointment. M —

Méchain stays in the hotel in Barcelona until May, trying to get the numbers right. He can’t resolve the difference.

All of which throws my spirit into the most extreme disgust.

M —

In a panic, he leaves for Italy and stays there for a year. Everyone is trying to reach him. He stalls and won’t come back.

12:00 min Barcelona, Spain

There is a desire to abstract a knowable thing; a human desire to measure: to split evenly into units, over and over. Or is it only human? The province of all animals? Or all living things? To divide, and divide again?

101

13:37 min

103

Delambre begins his triangles around Paris, aims his repeating circles at the cross at the top of the Pantheon, a perfect target, only to find it missing, the sans-culottes destroying cathedral towers faster than Delambre can locate them. As an experiment, you said we should describe these two men, each as a color, for Méchain, you say “blue, leading to dark turquoise.” For Delambre, the man of action, I pick blue too: patriotic, vibrant, but sort of fiduciary, like the color of a bank sign.

105

10:36 min

107

12:52 min Clermont-Ferrand, France

109

13:22 min Clermont-Ferrand, France

111

You and I will reach our goal, I think, by avoiding exaggerated claims. And contenting ourselves with the art of the possible. Anyone with the least notion of the difficulties we face will take them into account when they consider the exactitude we achieve. D —

113

The meridian project calls for two physical measurements, two real lines to which all the abstract triangles made from stars, cathedrals and mountaintops can connect. Delambre goes to measure this northern baseline outside of Paris. Here in Melun, Delambre lines up platinum rulers, moving one to connect to the end of the other. For forty-one days, morning to night. Six miles of rulers on a straight Roman road. The ghost of Delambre here in the center of a traffic rotary.Under the trees, everything looked right.

115

15:54 min Melun, France

117

My audience was quite large. The first rows heard without understanding; the others, further back, heard less and saw nothing. D —

119

16:10 min Taconic Parkway, New York

121

A revolution means everything turns. It all has to be new: days, weeks, years, all time. The basilica of Saint-Denis has been the site of royal coronations and burials for 800 years. During the revolution all the dead bodies of kings and queens are removed from their crypts and dumped into two pits nearby.

123

The instruments were spread out in the square and I was obliged to recommence my lecture on geodesy. I was not heard any more favorably this time. D —

Here in St. Denis, they seize Delambre and his devices. To defend himself, he unpacks all his tools and demonstrates how they work. D —

Impatient murmurs began to be heard. Rotating telescopes. Platinum rulers. Notebooks. The astronomer defends; citizens listen skeptically.

A few voices proposed one of those expeditious methods, so in use these days — which cut through all difficulties and put an end to all doubts. D —

“Citizen, I challenge you to recite the months of the year in the new Revolutionary calendar!” Vendémiaire Brumaire Frimaire Nivôse Pluviôse Ventôse Germinal Floréal Prairial Messidor Thermidor Fructidor

125

14:03 min Paris, France

127

Accusations, senseless imprisonment, reckless murders. The guillotine slices off a head in under two seconds; the repeating circle was not the only new technology: you need new tools to streamline an otherwise tedious process of mass execution. How do you measure the terror of 1794? A terror whose victims include scribes, notaries, lawyers, locksmiths, cobblers, coopers, cafĂŠ owners, innkeepers, waiters, brewers, vinegar makers, lemonade vendors, bookkeepers, architects, chocolate makers, bakers, pastry makers, doctors, wet nurses, domestic servants, dyers, hosiers, muslin workers, drummers, musicians, actors, wigmakers, haberdashers, seamstresses, painters, hairdressers, herbalists, boatmen, printers, math students, coal miners, and fishwives.

129

09:54 min

131

Mizar’s a special kind of star and very famous. It’s got a companion, a very faint star named Alcor not too far away. And these two stars move together, gravity keeps them near, and they rotate around one another. Méchain, like all astronomers of the time, knew this. His error lay not in the star, but elsewhere. Méchain’s in Italy. Delambre, the Academy, his family –– they write him letters: come back, finish your work. But he won’t. You say his is the response of sanity in the face of death.

133

41:11 min Paris, France

135

22:09 min Manhattan, New York

137

22:26 min Manhattan, New York

139

22:34 min Manhattan, New York

141

You see that I am well informed about events six hundred miles away and that my fears are not all chimeras. M —

Delambre is now here at his zenith in Dunkeque, ready to mirror Méchain’s star measurements. “Which stars did you use?” he writes to Méchain. No answer, but a question in return:

How do you keep your notes? I ask so that I may follow the same sequence as you and we may present our results uniformly. You have already measured a great many triangles. I have completed far fewer. So it will cost me little to redo all of my logbooks in the manner you have chosen. D —

Once an observation is taken I consider it a sacred thing, whether good or poor, I faithfully record it. The commission will decide what to publish. In the meantime, I suppress nothing. D —

Your information offers me the most instructive lessons. I only regret my own inadequacies that make it impossible for me to bring our work into concert. I will endeavor to follow a more reliable method. M —

143

I make so bold as to urge you to calm yourself about your observations, I consider them definitive. I hardly flatter myself to think I will do as well. D —

I could never compete with you.

145

24:52 min Dunkerque, France

147

24:51 min Dunkerque, France

149

unflower Galaxy, Sombrero Galaxy, Owl S Nebula, Cetus A, Little Dumbell Nebula,â€‰clusters, objects, constellations. A world spent looking outward into a secret, silent space. Watching and searching, moving and standing, building and lifting. Being up high, being cold, being hot, looking through and out of this swirling world.

151

25:02 min Dunkerque, France

153

25:04 min Dunkerque, France

155

25:05 min Dunkerque, France

157

25:06 min Dunkerque, France

159

25:09 min Dunkerque, France

161

25:19 min Dunkerque, France

163

25:22 min Dunkerque, France

165

Itâ€™s June 1794. The Terror is over. The damage is done.

167

25:28 min Dunkerque, France

169

I would have accomplished a lot more last winter if I had been in the good graces of Robespierre. The sans-culottes have destroyed half the steeples in Bourges for daring insolently to rise above the height of their humble cottages. D —

Bresson wrote “All battles are waged in the creases of the maps.” All things have a middle, a gap, a valley, a place where mistakes like to land. The Bourges region: marshy, gray, flat. Hard to fathom.

For ten days of my labor, I slept in my clothes on bales of hay living on milk and cheese. I could almost never sight two stations simultaneously because a thick fog obscured the horizon. In the long intervals while I waited ten or twelve hours for a view of a summit. I was scorched by the sun, chilled by the wind, and drenched by the rain. D —

But nothing irritated me more than the inaction. We needed to get this project done. It’s something we took on together and couldn’t even envision going back on though at times our feet felt mired in mud that was not in fact underfoot at all.

171

April 1795: Méchain is finally convinced to leave Italy, but he stalls in the south of France for five months. Finally, he decides to go to Perpignan to measure the southern baseline. This shouldn’t take too long. And he can almost see the top of the cathedral in Rodez — where his triangles will finally converge with Delambre’s. The hardest part is done, or so it seems.

You work your way to me with the swiftness of an eagle – M —

173

25:39 min

175

26:13 min Bourges Region, France

177

Delambre is in Rodez. He’s measured almost all of France on his own and now he’s at this red-rocked cathedral and it is beautiful. Joyous reunion awaits, the two will come together, victorious in their quest for scientific accuracy. But Méchain is nowhere to be found. They send letters back and forth; Méchain flatters Delambre; Delambre coaxes Méchain. Spring comes and Méchain procrastinates, remeasures, and builds a sundial near Perpignan. It’s been five and a half years since Méchain and Delambre started measuring. But there’s still no meter.

179

27:27 min Perpignan, France

181

28:32 min Ruynes-en-Margeride, France

183

29:05 min Rodez, France

185

27:27 min Perpignan, France

187

30:30 min Manhattan, New York

189

30:50 min Manhattan, New York

191

31:19 min Manhattan, New York

193

The meter will make life easier. No more varying of the size of the loaf of bread or jug of wine. The meter, the liter, and the kilo. No trusting of the eye or hand. Price will be the only variable. But first they need the numbers.

195

And in July of 98, with only three months to go before the conference, this second baseline in Perpignan still needs measuring, and this is MĂŠchainâ€™s baseline. He thinks of it as his, his one real, true line of a triangle, but he refuses. His wife, whom he hasnâ€™t seen in six years, meets with him, begs him to measure his baseline. After their meeting, she writes to Delambre in secret:

Citizen, having completely failed in my mission, and with a heavy heart pierced by a thousand griefs, I return to Paris. I begged him to measure the baseline of Perpignan with you. He always answered me vaguely. I insisted that I would not leave his side until he had finished all his triangles and had been reunited with you. He renounced the baseline irrevocably.

197

32:14 min Salses-le-ChĂ˘teau, France

199

Outside Perpignan we find the marker where, alone, Delambre starts and finishes; we see the straight road he measures. We shoot it, my skinny tripod shaking, yours steadfast. And we see these two little streets that run through the fields and stop short before the A1 highway. The streets, right next to each other, are called “Impasse Méchain” and “Impasse Delambre.” Méchain and Delambre dead-ends.

201

32:50 min Salses-le-ChĂ˘teau, France

203

33:17 min Salses-le-ChĂ˘teau, France

205

35:22 min St. Pons, France

207

After all that has happened, I can no longer show myself anywhere and my only wish is to be annihilated. M —

Scale. Degree of precision. Magnitude of error. Uniformity. Universality. Equality. Making all the world familiar, eccentricities absorbed, made into surface texture. People fight for years in Somalia, Congo, Kashmir and other places you will never know or hear about because the news doesn’t tell you … you feel as distant from this as from the reports of the U.S. Civil War, the Vietnam War, or the war between France and Spain, France and everywhere, everywhere that was threatened by populist uprising in the late 18th century, each battle about the impossibility of sameness. Méchain begins to measure north toward Rodez but gets stuck in St Pons, a valley that feels like a vortex, a deep thumb-press in the middle of the mountains, a town, as you rightly pointed out, where a person can easily disappear. Not that it’s not beautiful, it is. But we got there, ate some food, and didn’t know what to do or to film. It felt all closed in and sort of pointless. Méchain is still measuring here through September as the savants of Europe wait in Paris. He’s stalling, unwilling to relinquish his measurements. Delambre makes the three day journey from Rodez and waits patiently in the valley for him. It’s October, then November. The savants have been in Paris for three months. But Delambre will not leave without Méchain.

209

I am working as fast as I can, but cannot see through the clouds, nor stand up to the hurricanes that carry everything before them. M —

As it is there is barely enough time for you to make the journey in good time. I will send you my results there as soon as I am done. It would be an infinite pleasure to meet you. But I am unshaken in my resolve not to return to Paris this winter. I will not change my resolution or anything in the world. In the springtime we will see if my existence is still of use somewhere. But are they still savants? When Delambre finally lures Méchain out of St. Pons, and back to Paris, when they finally close their triangles and all of France is measured, when it’s now January 1799, and the fin de siècle in is full swing, has modernity dawned? Are the savants who await them … now scientists?

211

37:08 min

213

37:09 min

215

37:11 min

217

27:15 min

219

37:28 min

221

37:36 min

223

40:10 min Paris, France

225

43:03 min Paris, France

227

The scientists of Europe do math. Méchain despairs, worried the conflicting data from Barcelona will reveal his failures. Instead, the scientists blame them on an irregularly shaped meridian: a bump on the earth’s surface, someone else’s mistake:

Our observations show that Earth’s curve is nearly circular from Dunkerque to Paris, more elliptical from Bourges to Rodez, then returns to the prior ellipse from Rodez to Barcelona. M —

So why did HE who molded the globe with his hands not take more care?

229

In June 1799 as the bloody century draws to a close, the scientists melt, mold, cut, and present a platinum bar, a length based on an inconstant earth: a measure for all humanity. The meter, the liter, the kilo: objects manifest from seven years of measurements of Delambre and MĂŠchain. Celebrations, revolutions, new regimes: Napoleon grabs power. So much for the people running the show. Now thereâ€™s an Emperor. And he wants it all.

231

39:29 min Paris, France

233

MĂŠchain and Delambre are lauded and rewarded for their work, at the pinnacles of their careers; MĂŠchain is declared the head of the Observatory and Delambre the President of the Academy.

235

jxgoss@gmail.com – 6/6/13 You should be home more or less now! I loved our trip – you were a great complimentary companion. See attached. You would have loved the museum. On our return! j@nilrep.net – 6/10/13 P.S. Jackie I have been thinking of ways to frame our project also so that we don’t get reactions like those people from canada gave when we were filming the meter. I’m interested in this notion of a world in chaos and an attempt to control it. It seems to have resonance to today in a way that of course intrigues me. I think it’s important while not necessarily being didactic that we somehow are able to set up the feeling of intensity, necessity and also arbitrariness about the expedition. Just a thought more soon thank you! J jxgoss@gmail.com – 6/10/13 You’re right Jenny. We should try to frame it that way instead of “history of the meter” I’m kicking myself for not shooting more of those kids in the park dumping dirt on the meridian – I have some but it seems so perfect now wish I had more. Also the VOLCANO with antennas on top! Talk about a desire to control nature. Why didn’t we shoot that?! jxgoss@gmail.com – 6/17/13 Just took a quick look at the footage and generally I think it looks great! Some of it is very beautiful. Of course a few problems here and there: dirty lenses and my camera seems to have an intermittent light leak near the end if the shoot. That hair we were worried about does not appear on your

stuff. Some of it is a little noisy (the transfer guy chastised me for shooting 500T ). All of the stuff of people is great and we’ll be happy to have that I think when we edit. One disappointment: the double-wide of Montserrat seems to have serious lens flare for both of our cameras, but my stuff that I was sure would be overexposed there is fine. The fort double-wide seems fine too. There’s other places with flare, but you know, we want error right? I think I should send a drive to you with it just so you can start to absorb it too. I’m also thinking we should read more and write some now – what so you think? I have a history of measurement by a polish guy that I’m liking. Maybe some French Revolution stuff? Would your friend Jonathan have some recs? Ok I know you’re on vacation so enough for now. Let me know when you return and send me your current address? JXG

In 1803 Méchain can’t resist, and heads south again to measure and calculate new triangles in the islands off Barcelona. He knows it’s the end of him, he’s old and he wants to die there, where the failure is most palpable. And he contracts yellow fever and does so, in 1804, in Valencia, Spain.

jxgoss@gmail.com – 6/26/13 I’m re/reading andro linklater’s measuring America – it’s great and maybe just as important for us as the Alder! I think you’re gonna love it. It’s all about Ohio. Trying to read fast so I can send to you. Sent the drive on Monday to the gallery. Let me know when you get it. It’s hot here. I’m loving reading. In a cafe in Tivoli. j@nilrep.net – 6/26/13 Hi JG I am well! A bit here and there, scattered in the head (what’s new). Having lots of intense dreams (pre-packing). Enjoying Berlin like crazy. Excited about going to Italy with the fam on Sunday. It is all so luxurious and amazing. Can’t wait to see the footage. I am thinking about standardization

237

and control of chaos, but also the productive sides of standardization. Have had the mood lately to write in a less researched and more impulsive way but am trying to control it. Should probably read more and write something rather than just have babbly thoughts in my head and in email. Saw E. and T. and that was great. Would be nice to sit in Tivoli with you too! We will do that too. Will look up Measuring America and try to find it. Wrote Daniel Rosenberg and asked him for more things to read. More soon Jenny jxgoss@gmail.com – 6/26/13 I’m all for babbly writing! Let’s read and write a lot – jxgoss@gmail.com – 7/20/13 Just fixing to send you stuff and here you are! Great! My stuff is REALLY rough and mostly stream of conscious. There’s three documents here: One is an excerpt from a script I was thinking I was writing years ago that kind of tell the story in a nutshell. Don’t know if that’s useful or not. It makes me want to reread Alder though and get all the dates straight. I realize I have no idea of the proper timeline of it all. The second one is just a collection of random thoughts and tidbits about each place we shot. The third is a series of ideas I keep poking at written in response to some prompts I gave myself, but the writing here is pretty goofy, and not very deep. I look forward to reading your stuff! JG j@nilrep.net – 7/20/13 Jg I will not make excuses for this writing but here it is in all its pimply abstraction. Send yours, hope you are well! Many hugs Jp

jxgoss@gmail.com – 7/21/13 Hi Jenny, For what it’s worth I made this timeline. It helped me hold it all in my head better. It also made me realize how important Tranchot is – like the third part of the triangle! What do you think we should do next? Want to try and skype this week?

Delambre writes Méchain into history as a hero. He skirts around the mistakes, and hides their letters in a box. The Base du Système Mètrique Décimal, ou, Mesure de L’Arc du Méridien. Comprising the entire parallel of Dunkirk to Barcelona, executed in 1792 and in following years. Published in 1806.

jxgoss@gmail.com – 7/28/13 amend, change, delete, add? this may be ridiculously ambitious given that you’re going to be moving. Meet to discuss/ edit voiceover, come up with list of other images/sounds to collect AUGUST 26 th all other images and sounds collected AUGUST 31st film processed, transferred MEET to come up with editing plan SEPT 30 th first cuts due MEET to discuss first cuts, more to shoot or record? OCTOBER 30th second cuts due, MEET to discuss NOVEMBER send out to fests? NOVEMBER 30 th final cuts DECEMBER sound mixes and prints made? jxgoss@gmail.com – 7/28/13 will you bring a euro home so we can shoot it? nilrepj@gmail.com – 8/13/13 when i import xml error message comes up: please choose translation document file. when i select ok, it returns me to select another file and when i do not it says ‘cannot open file, no translation documents found …’ jxgoss@gmail.com – 8/13/13 Ok Jenny ill try again. Can you tell me this: when you export and XML what choices do you have for file format?

239

40:24 min Paris, France

241

nilrepj@gmail.com – 8/13/13 xml files, all files, text files. nilrepj@gmail.com – 8/13/13 also, dumb question but while you are editing footage are you making each screen small first and then editing or editing first and then shrinking the track to be a left or right channel? am editing on laptop so things are slow. jxgoss@gmail.com – 8/13/13 HI Jenny, I think I exported the xml as too late of a version. Try this one that’s attached. When doing the double-wides, I’ve kept the sequence settings wide (1920 × 1080) then brought each clip into its own track (so two video tracks stacked vertically on the timeline), then I shrink them both to 65% and position them so they’re side by side. FCP wants to render it, but it does playback in real time on my laptop. I was thinking if we want to edit our own footage individually, it probably will make sense for each of us to make a sequence of our stuff at full size (1920 × 1080) and then nest each our sequences in a master sequence where we can re-size and position them. If this doesn’t run on your laptop in realtime, maybe we should figure out something else where we down-res all of our source footage first to SD files and use these as proxies until we’re ready to output. nilrepj@gmail.com – 8/17/13 Hi jackie, I need an extension. I have to go visit this cute little town in a valley near Rodez. D’you mind if i send you that little xml file on tuesday evening? yrs machine

phone/computer autocorrected Méchain to Machine. Mine changes it to Mechanic. Both so totally wrong! nilrepj@gmail.com – 8/18/13 to me it didnt auto correct. it was purely an act of cleverness on my part xo jxgoss@gmail.com – 8/18/13 Oops! Sorry I jumped to conclusions.

Even with a small telescope, you can see that Mizar itself is a double star, and these two also orbit one another. And Mizar is found to be a double double; a group of four, and Alcor’s also double. So there are six. Méchain insisted he used only the brightest star of Mizar. Delambre didn’t use it. The star is not the problem. Each time Méchain used the repeating circle, it wore down, just a little bit. A turn, another turn, ten thousand turns, the device was altered. Just a little bit.

jxgoss@gmail.com – 8/27/13 Hi Jenny, can you mail the filter holders for the bolex back to me? Our equipment manager just came calling … nilrepj@gmail.com – 9/2/13 the ones where i shot some on your camera and so did you. do we split up those shots? jxgoss@gmail.com – 9/3/13 oh I know! and sometimes we switched sides on our doublewides. I would say generally we should stick to our own footage except those doublewides that switch? I dunno … Not sure what I did wrong with XML s so here are two more tries attached. I just watched Varda’s “Le Bonheur” which devastated me … jxgoss@gmail.com – 9/2/13 Hi Jenny, What do you think about September 28th as a deadline to try and get a rough cut of all of our footage? Is that too insane? I was thinking we could just prowceed the way we have been and try to meet up that weekend perhaps to watch everything together? Still sending each other XMLs when we have them? Let me know. I definitely don’t want to drive you into hiding with my missives …

jxgoss@gmail.com – 8/18/13 Sure Baby. I love that your

243

41:42 min

245

jxgoss@gmail.com – 10/4/13 Having fun trying out different edits. One thing I notice: my shots, it’s true, are longer and sometimes more versatile because of that, but the really ace stuff is always from your camera. jxgoss@gmail.com – 11/6/13 Thank you for being so diligent about recording sounds on our trip. Where would we be without them? nilrepj@gmail.com – 11/6/13 It’s me favorite thing to do. I am delighted that they are useful! more tomorrow. looking forward! jxgoss@gmail.com – 11/6/13 I’m feeling really productive and good about all of this! jxgoss@gmail.com – 11/7/13 Here’s a whack at St Pons – meh. nilrepj@gmail.com – 12/23/13 Dear Jackie I want first of all to wish you guys a very happy christmas! we here in balmy bklyn send lotsa love to you all there. second, some of my agenda items for our work together. i imagine our workdays sort of like we will meet and then either edit together or edit side by side and then come together to compare. I dont know how you imagine it. let me know what you are thinking. i think it’s important to work on the narrative arc and the interstitial material, ie, how much information and ‘breathing room’ we want to have in between the locations. and what that material will look like. I’ve done some screen grabs of the triangles, calculations, and charts from the base du systeme and they are nice though messy because i’m not that technical.

I am curious but not attached to the idea of using some of these graphic elements either as they are or ‘redone’. I dont know if it would add to or take away from the live action landscape things we have already. i’m really open to it working or not working. I think one of our goals should be to really nail down the story and get everything in there that we want, whether that’s adding more voiceover or information in another form. maybe we can spend a couple of hours on the first day doing that (I find that the hardest stuff). I think best would be to work on these big picture things first since i dont know about you but i can also noodle around forever in details and lose sight of that. we could watch the whole thing first and make notes of what’s missing, or simply start in. My feeling is right now that the story is interesting to us because we know it so well but there are so many things that someone who does not know the details would not understand. without being too documentary i feel like we need to have more information in there, and possibly slow it down (the time between information given and moving on to the next thing) so the info can be absorbed. I guess I’m talking about pacing. Which works really well inside the scenes but is next going to have to be balanced between them. is there anything you think i should watch between now and our meeting? i would love your suggestions. send ideas from you please! i’m looking forward to it. nilrepj@gmail.com – 1/4/14 Jackie, i wrote some cathedral things but i fear my tone is off or it sounds all kind of the same,

247

not really magesterial, but let me know what you think. i love writing and can always write more or rewrite. i’m attaching also the words colors list and what i’ve inserted into the voiceover that’s been used so far. i seem to have a good time at the start of the story but then peter out later on. How much do we want in there about the previous measurement systems? i want to impart a sense of urgency and necessity to their trip and feel like it needs that context, about how everything was at a standstill and it’s not just a thing of the revolution to do the meter. ok here is some stuff. i am still working on inserting more text into the VO doc that’s already been used, it seems to be the easiest way for me to write back and forth responding to what’s been used. let me know what you think! xo nilrepj@gmail.com – 1/24/14 hi jg update: i’m going to try to get into the office next week mon half day. tues, and thurs to work with the new material and the extra voiceover segments. i hope next week i can do some practice drawings too. Xo jxgoss@gmail.com – 1/24/14 Yeah! sounds good. I’m jealous that you’ll be working there! It’s so great. I’ve been fiddling with some abstractions too, I’ll try to upload something for you to look at next week. I have been thinking about the abstract imagery in Sans Soleil and how we might riff off that too nilrepj@gmail.com – 1/24/14 How is everything going up there? jxgoss@gmail.com – 1/24/14 pretty good. In other news though, I got our V/O draft with notes back from my friend O. –

she really gave it a good read. Should we wait til we have more to go over them? And generally how are you? JXG jxgoss@gmail.com – 1/26/14 I keep thinking we should have images like this in there somwhow. Maybe we should get some MAX MSP/Jitter person to make some triangley strar-like astractions for us out of our images … http:// www.creativeapplications.net/ openframeworks/cloudsinteractive-documentaryexploring-the-creativitythrough-the-lens-of-code/ nilrepj@gmail.com – 1/28/14 interesting idea! My first thought is it’s too computery but then it could be a cool contrast to the landscape all full of flaws and grain. nilrepj@gmail.com – 2/3/14 how are you doing? if i dont hear from you every few days i want to hear your thoughts xo jxgoss@gmail.com – 2/3/14 hey great! I’ve attached my three. Want to send yours to me? I have a feeling school is gonna get canceled on Wed for me which will mean Thursday before I have time to look at all of them. But I’m making some star movies for you to look at toojxgoss@gmail.com – 2/20/14 Hey Jenny, had a thought: On page 180 in the alder book is an image of d and m’s triangles. How about Ido one stop frame of d’s triangles and you do one of m’s?

nilrepj@gmail.com – 2/20/14 great idea!

249

jxgoss@gmail.com – 2/24/14 JP – I looked at some of the

star movies in the theater. I though they looked pretty great. I also made four more “stop frame triangles” Still going to try some “harry smith” type stuff this week. Do you want to send me your latest v/o to look at? nilrepj@gmail.com – 2/24/14 hi jg i sent vo but will send again. tonite am also going to import all my animations and try to get them out to you as quicktimes. exciting! nilrepj@gmail.com – 3/6/14 they are great http://ubu mexico.centro.org.mx/sound/ satie_erik/selected_works/ Satie-Eric_Selected-Works_ 06_Vexations.mp3 jxgoss@gmail.com – 3/6/14 Ok now I’m kind of obsessing over this vexations idea. Can you play that? nilrepj@gmail.com – 3/6/14 Why not! Let’s get the score. Or should we play if on electric guitar? My only concern is that if is too “known” but that is me. Let’s play! Xo jxgoss@gmail.com – 3/6/14 Did you see the score? It’s hysterical. Electric guitar’s a great idea. I googled a bit – you know more than me but I’d never heard of it and it doesn’t seem to have made any cinema appearances. Have you used it? nilrepj@gmail.com – 3/6/14 Didn’t see the score! Send a link? Can’t remember if I used it or just tried in a kind of obsessive temp track kinda way. Glad you like it! jxgoss@gmail.com – 4/4/14 I have a timeline that’s cov-

ered! It ain’t pretty and there’s some basic clean up I’d like to do tonight, but it’s there. I’ll send you a QT sans sounds by the end of the weekend. Next week you want to try some sound-design and I’ll keep working on refining the edit? about to do my taxes …

When we were kids, we remember learning about the meter, and learning that it would soon become the standard. We were excited and confused and spent a lot of time in school looking at these odd lengths and volumes, translating between our old and new measures. But the change never happened.

jxgoss@gmail.com – 5/3/14 Checking in: Hope T. got off in good form. I feel good about what we did today. Excited to see this –

The globe is as violent and chaotic as it ever was. Fragmented, revolutionary, incomprehensible. Moments of clarity glimmer like fish jumping out of the sea only to disappear again in the water above an old boat’s wreckage.

nilrepj@gmail.com – 5/3/14 Hi sweets, Thanks. It was great. I feel a little bad we didn’t get more measurements but I feel quite happy about our sleeping guys. So right on you are! Came home. T left. Took kids to piano then to bklyn museum then home. Only got mad once. Hope your guys are good and you are too! Hugs Jp Sent from a rectangular device. jxgoss@gmail.com – 5/26/14 Hi JP – Hope you had a blast in New Paltz -- the weather was pretty nice! I ended up postponing trip to NH and am going up by myself tomorrow til Thursday to help my Dad, so trying to plan ahead for next week-end. I’m thinking a priority might be to shoot the last of the intro stuff and anything else we need and think we can get up here (tree pan, cloud pan, brick pan? trees at dusk … anything else? Also we didn’t figure out the titles – should we just shoot black on white and reverse in FCP? I realized I never sent in the stars that I shot off the monitor on 550T! Somehow I thought that was the roll that didn’t come out – now I don’t know WHAT that was. So I’m sending that in tomorrow

251

along with the stuff we shot at the beach. It makes me nervous to have it lying around unprocessed! I have ONE roll of 250D left, and TWO rolls of 500T. I think you have one roll of 250D as well. Would you be able to pick up two more rolls of 250D before next weekend? And what stock should we get to do the titles over? OK -- hope alls well, love, JG j@nilrep.net – 4/4/14 yes! i am so excited jackie goss. thank you for everything why dont you take a week off next week while i hack into the audio! i hope that i can do a good job tried to do taxes (you still working with brass taxes? we are) just finished teaching whew. heading out to get some food. hugs nilrepj@gmail.com – 6/22/14 opening titles: no opening VO shortnened much better. reinsert date as part of VO? barcelona spacing of the VO much better too, the “gondolas funiculars” i dont know if i dont like the VO or if i dont love the shot or if both together is too much? maybe i am overthinking that. barcelona feels a little bit truncated, maybe a little over-cut? pacing seems a little more rushed than the rest of the film. or maybe i am just not used to this cut. great transition to telescopes and information montserrat (the war is approaching spaing) marketconfusing? i dont like the signs “fuji,” ‘apple cider’ some shots too short “back in barcelona” black space before: put flag on that. i’m more of a fan of offsetting the bell off the cut sometimes? maybe bell is too many times in general? it starts to lose its strength and feel like a sound effect.

i offset my sound-image much more often (that is me) return to barcelona: water pump scene: great. rodez audio under melun is distracting to me. Melun to Amiens geography is off in the VO Amiens full screen cell phone tower not great. Amiens is problematic but more compact St Denis good (i sort of missed some of the double screen of the cathedral. it is almost all single screen…?) transition to Mizar is super great transition to sleepers is also pretty amazing. great place for a break i love the dunkirk section im not 100% convinced by conference section. maybe Méchain ‘elastic band’ section too melodramatic? nice choice to put me Méchain titles in the middle and of course we need to put a line in that delambre came to help or finish the perpignan…but that is also easy to do. i want to change the end text (it’s so ‘doc style’ and out of character for the film. i feel embarrassed when i hear it … but that is easy to get rid of the orphan word.

A flash of silver, quick ripples, and they’re gone.

253

43:57 min Paris, France

255

257

259