Tutorial Report 30 Emily Richardson

Date:     10^th January 2014                             Tutor:  Emily Richardson

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Reflection on outcomes since last tutorial

It felt like a privilege to have a whole hour tutorial, to talk about work, study, moving image and exhibition and project issues. Emily is doing a PhD at the RCA, so we talked a bit about that and my PhD proposal, about the difficulty of articulating those ideas into words - in fact, my initial proposal was going to about that - artists writing and translating their thoughts into words as well as art - it has refined into something more specific. We start off in the wordless places. Discussed doing a PhD as a way into becoming a practising artist with funded projects in archives, residencies, etc.

Discussed my work - Construction, The Future Past Tense, 24 Hour Sibelius, final project found paintings and layers of people. Construction - trapped and claustrophobic, muffled sound as if on the periphery, separated from the world. Like being confined underwater - an intense experience. Discussed how making work within the MA is like going down particular pathways of work very far, so not necessarily representative of entire practice. Her MA gave her years of material to work through - I can understand that. 24 Hour Sibelius - intense experience, the music shifting and changing - constantly shifting from expectations - also sound in The Future Past Tense - mesmeric. The experience of the viewer having their own thoughts during the abstract shifts in TFPT - thinking of the sea, space, etc.

Making work - the internal structure or form emerges during the making process, and then you have to obey it! By following the internal rationale while making, the viewer is given a structure against their expectations, and is free to employ their imagination while also experiencing something which follows its own logic.

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Current projected aims and outcomes

Discussed using appropriated imagery. I discussed what I am aiming for in moving image, especially in the final project and what work I hope to make once I am "free" of the MA, and making work using all elements of practice. The imagined narrative - or implied narrative. Discussed the works I admire using this - The Clock, earlier works by Matthias Muller, etc, also work of Elizabeth Price. Yes, that's it exactly - eg in Woolworth film, Price uses the gesture as the link between clips. In a way I want to make the layers of work, and then link them together as if they were found footage or appropriated imagery, and find a gesture, an object, a concept or something to link them together so that they form a new construct, not how they were originally conceived or made. I think this sideways views creates the imagined narrative I'm thinking of. For example - currently I'm thinking of linking the people in my old school photos through eye contact they seem to make with each other through different photographs. Or their boots. Something like that. Creating a structured serendipity.

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/old-school-photos.html

Came onto talking about the ethics of using appropriated imagery, or ideas in archive photographs for other more abstract purposes. For example, recently I did some research in the Weiner Library, making abstract links between my photographs and sensitive material. Of course it's valid but it has to be done with integrity and thought through.

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-weiner-library-archive.html

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/ethics-of-archive-material.html

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Discussion and recommendations

Moving image artist Stan Brakhage - painting and found materials directly onto film. Direct link to the subconscious through peripheral vision. Non narrative - film as art form.

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/272-by-brakhage-the-act-of-seeing

Ubuweb

http://www.ubuweb.tv/

LUX, of course.

http://lux.org.uk/

British Artists Film and Video Collection

http://www.studycollection.org.uk/

In fact I was there the other night for a book launch and got to go into the archive.

http://www.studycollection.org.uk/content/2013/12/16/open-evening-and-a-history-of-video-art-book-launch

Basically it's time to go to these archives and explore them more.There's nothing like browsing shelves to make discoveries. Discussed that disadvantage of distance learning - access to browsing library shelves.

Showing work - mine hard to place, showing less. Luck and persistence in applying. Looking for context to fit - galleries, curators etc. Beyond the MA. Selling prints and DVDs - Emily had a grant to print and commission an essay - worked with LUX. Now changing, more streaming, etc.

Reflection

It's not that I'm basically paranoid, but in other more academic tutorials, responses can be challenging, omissions pointed out, suggestions made - I don't mind that, but throughout talking to Emily I was aware how great it was to have someone who believed what I was saying to them!

Funny how artists and people do so many things different ways round - when to have children, study, do PhDs, get married, and so on. It constantly feels like being at the beginning of something.

19th January 2014