Tutorial Report 28

Date: 21st October 2013  Tutor:  Caroline Wright
_________________________________________________________________________________

Reflection on outcomes since last tutorial 

The sound of the last assessed piece is a bit of an issue for me – I feel it was intended and right, assessors found it less successful. It’s true that I didn’t test it with MA colleagues as I was making – partly due to time and the structure of the piece, where much of the making occurred at the end of the unit. I think it’s a great idea to make test pieces and gauge whether the reaction is as intended – I will do that this unit. Closeness and distance.

I showed Construction to a non artist friend recently who unprompted, picked up on the aspects I had hoped for, that she clearly thought the voices were coming from inside, offstage, somewhere else, memories, and so on, and got the tone of the piece. Intense and scary. Yes, I’ll come back to this later, but I can’t quite grasp as yet that the very qualities not as successful in assessment were the qualities of disorientation and doubt I had wanted.
____________________________________________________________________________

Current projected aims and outcomes

The outline research theme – found paintings and found/lost people. Each found and lost in different ways – almost opposites. The paintings are found in being recognised, collected and reframed as abstract imagery, the people/photos are lost identities and lives. Although I will be exploring issues of authorship, eg, who is the artist of these abstract paintings, when in fact they are photographs of accidental byproducts, the work will seek to both pose questions and offer answers. I want to look at why these paintings have as much meaning to me as actual paintings. Worth exploring. Together they will evolve in the end to a piece of moving image.

Discussed plans to research and explore the implied narrative in my work – a recognisable motif rather than unendedness. I don’t know yet how this structure will be constructed and what will be the reasoning. That’s what is going on now. Collecting the images and ideas, the painting and people, there will be a method and methodology, and a structure will emerge.
________________________________________________________________________________

Discussion and recommendations

Make and share a test piece in MA using implied narrative structure. Check the communication.
I will send round 24 Hour Sibelius when it is completely finished – it’s very nearly there, but slow, as it is an enormous file size so far. Sound work and exploration continues.
Book – Noise Water Meat. A history of sound in the arts by Douglas Khan.

Reflection

I realise I have somewhat deconstructed my art practice during the MA. At the beginning I found it very difficult to respond to projects and make work for the MA that I would not have made otherwise, so less moving image. Now that I have examined the layers, I feel I can put it all back together with a more overall or global view. Some principles I previously applied to making work I can reinstate, now more mindfully, such as having a structure based on a time event, rather than unendedness.

The implied narrative, and treating my own work like found footage to chop up and find different themes and linkages, feels like a revelation. I think that’s how people look at work, fill in the links, how it engages imagination and brings along all those other layers.

24th October 2013