Walter Verdin studied art history and plastic arts (painting, etching). His designs of record sleeves and posters introduced him to the Belgian pop music scene at the end of the seventies, resulting in a solo album with Flemish funky songs. After his remarkable participation in the Eurovision Song Contest of 1983 with his group Pas de deux, he decided to take leave of popular music and concentrate on the combination of video and music/sound.
Videorhythmics (1984) is his first video/concert in which live music was played on the pulses of rhythmically edited videotapes. Since then he has produced several video and multimedia installations and video concerts in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany, Denmark and Finland. His video art tapes have been shown at all the major international video art festivals.
Since 1980, he has been videotaping theatre performances for the University of Leuven and for several dance and theatre companies. This, in turn, has led to the production of theatre and dance videos in their own right, as well as video clips. He worked together with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus, Steve Paxton and many others. Roseland (1991) was probably the most successful of these collaborations, honored with three important international prices.
In 1993 he decided to take a break in his production of dance tapes in order to work on his own projects. The video installation Videolepsia (1993) was the first result of this decision. At the end of that year, he went to the Ivory Coast to shoot for the video concert X-Afrika (1996).
In 1999 he started working on the Storm trilogy, a research on the interaction between video and three other disciplines: dance, music and theatre. Since then, he focused on short collaborations with other artists, in small projects, always with the use of video and sound: concerts, performances, installations...
In 2002 Walter Verdin started the project TITLE SAFE.
Cher Walter, I can be eclectic in my choice of correspondance. I only came today to change an old passcode, but thought to check on you. I have always had the great fondness for quiet actors. Those ones always up to something, plotting and working diligently. The very mortar of every discipline. xx
Going away is something different than sneaking out of the house softly pulling the door shut behind your existence and not returning. You remain someone who is waited for. xx.n
busy sweetie, je sais. moi, aussi. just change this passcode once in a while. and, no, this piece was classic -- he is many years your senior. Don't think in this way. xxx.natalie
Breeze soft, sun frail, autumn still early. In a new lined dress my heart was refreshed, But when I rose from sleep I felt a chill. I put plum blossoms in my hair. Now they are withered. Where is my homeland? I forgot it only when drunk. The sandal wood incense burned out while I slept. Now the perfume has gone, But the wine has not gone.
Late this night, it is only me, this garrison, cannons and a black blue sky. Ocean waves are breaking against the once fortressed wall of Essourira, and I am forgetting who I was once more.
The horizon is not far, and if I reach into it, I will lose something. If I reach further into it I will gain something excellent.
I feel such I need to leave the shore and swim until spent.
The air is chaste, and this stone is soft. I taste salt in my mouth and feel a smooth residue of olive oil, against my neck, from my hair. Concealed lightly in this pale grey head scarf and black woolen djellabas, I am as washed and worn as the abandoned vessel which rides waves on decades; weightless and filled with light.
The thought of leaving this again makes me want to polish the ends of the earth and impale myself on them. Because home never existed, and I have lived my reticent life rearward.
Of course, it's perfect. Everything you send is perfect. I was tired of myself, tired of the page, tired of everything. So I took the cursory 15 minutes to slap another wallpaper up. I wish I had more time to do it properly. all my love, bisous
