Artist’s Statement: VideoTonePoems are short multimedia montages that speak to both hemispheres of the brain in energetic mash-ups of words, images, and music all created by the director. They explore three Message categories: Spiritual Messages, often influenced by Indian spiritual & cultural sites; Natural Messages, portraying pristine environments; and Afflicted Messages, meditations on the human condition. A tone poem is classically defined as a piece of orchestral music, usually in one movement, on a descriptive or rhapsodic theme. As younger generations of artists develop multi-expressive talents/skills using digital technologies, the videopoetry genre can expand its vision through the work of one individual using all the available visual, poetic, music, and software technologies. It is my hope that VideoTonePoems will encourage and catalyze this “Renaissance” effort to express a unified vision of one individual’s expression in multiple creative arts. I have drawn on the tone poem form and expanded it into a conceptual and meditative collage that hopes to stop/engage the viewer in the roar of our 24/7 lives… and in that brief moment allow a connection to the higher wisdoms emanating from Spirit, Nature and Self: all mirroring our existential challenges.
Entropic Void (from VideoTonePoems, Suite I, 2014)
Red Lights (from VideoTonePoems: Suite II, 2016)
Stars Setting (from VideoTone Poems: Suite II, 2016)
Raindrops Falling (from VideoTonePoems: Suite III, 2017)
BIO: Payson R. Stevens has had two parallel tracks in his professional career: one in the field of science/science communication; the other in art, design, and film/video. His books include co-authoring the acclaimed Embracing Earth: New Views of Our Changing Planet and as a contributing author/artist to college textbooks (Biology Today and Geology Today). Stevens helped pioneer the field of digital interactive multimedia starting in 1987 and received the Presidential Design Award for Excellence from Bill Clinton. Since 2003 he has lived half the year in a remote Indian Himalayan Kullu Valley village. He was an advisor to the Great Himalayan National Park on environmental and rural community issues (2000-15) and helped spearhead its inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He began developing VideoTonePoems (VTPs) in 2013 and has published three VTP compilation DVDs and two books of poetry. His VTPs have been official selections in US and international film festivals. His VTP compilations and books of poetry can be found here on amazon. More of his VTP’s are available for viewing on vimeo. Learn more about Payson here.
