Date: 24th
September 2013 Tutor: Angela Rogers
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reflection on
outcomes since last tutorial
A tutorial about recent 2:1 Reflective Practice submission.
I told Angela I was surprised with the response about the sound, and that I had
deliberately designed it to feel odd and overlapping, disorientating and a
little difficult to hear and work out what is going on. She said the viewer
experience felt more clunky than that, and that the sound didn’t feel fully
resolved. They thought the sound was on loop, but it actually isn’t. Yes, they
got the whispering and shifting about, but felt the relationship with the sound
was not as mature, that the sound was not as mediated or transformed as the
images.
Funny that, I really
can see why they might think that, and why people respond differently, and yet
I still think the sound is totally right for the piece. Those discrepancies,
that slight wrongness that occurred, was very deliberate, and while I think the
piece demands quite a lot of the viewer visually, almost putting their head in
a brick space of my invention to experience the deep recesses of my psychology,
the sound mechanism is a match for that.
____________________________________________________________________________
Current projected aims
and outcomes
Angela reminded about a previous tutorial where we had
discussed my moving image having a beginning, a middle and an end. Although
Construction did not really have these, it wasn’t an issue because of the
nature of the piece, and it’s partly the point, that it is relentlessly the
same but different. Even though my work is not narrative, it usually has a
sense of progression or development and perhaps an imagined narrative structure.
I felt it was a risk and a self reveal to make it.
Stepping back from the self psychology, maintaining a
critical distance and seeing the work as a viewer, a passer-by. As I was making it, I remember considering
this quite a lot, and deciding that I would just have to trust in the adage of
the more personal it is the more universal. Clearly, I thought I had gone with
what the piece demanded, and agreed at all those levels of critique within
myself. I’ll always trust that inner voice, those inner voices. And as for what’s
going on inside my own head, I’d say it’s fairly accurate.
________________________________________________________________________________
Discussion and
recommendations
Discussed how I am finding it harder to place work in
exhibitions, and have not been in group exhibitions this year, despite plenty
of submissions. Work is longer and more specific. Life work and family have
made curating something through theViewergallery not feasible, but I must give
the time, space and resources to that. Of course, I can make shorter work
alongside, and will, but the point would be showing the work I make. I know I
am going to continue to make long pieces, I’m really happy doing that, but feel
that the work Construction exemplifies the conundrum I am in. Angela asked if I
meant stuck, and no, I don’t feel stuck, but I feel I replace one illusion for
the next, and find myself in the same place. The last thing I want is to have
finished the MA and still not be really showing work.
Key point - Position
myself in relation to other artists.
Reflection
I am happy to accept the feedback about the sound in
construction, and am also happy with the sound itself. Those things can
co-exist.
Looking towards the final unit, Angels said we will soon be able
to calculate where we are on the common credit framework thing. Intriguing.
24th September 2013
...................................................................................................................................................................
Angela added some comments later:
Additional comments added by AR post tutorial on 3.10.2013
Firstly, the importance of showing and sharing work during it's development and being careful not to take work to completion in isolation.
Secondly, the need for objectivity and even more rigorous critique on work that has been a deep or profound psychological experience.
Finally beware of rationalising what may still be a work in process, give something the space to breathe before you declare it resolved.
...................................................................................................................................................................
I have also been thinking through the piece and the assessment, trying to be objective and take on what really happened. In a way, every course such as degrees and MAs have their crisis. I have certainly had other crisis before, but they have been more to do with the course and understanding the questions. By crisis I don't mean a drama, but a decisive point, perhaps subtle, that indicates the point of a true shift. Perhaps this is my crisis in work. At last I've got to it. Perhaps I don't feel I really reached that before.
I'm still happy with the piece Construction, but I'm also aware of its insularity. I agree with Angela's comments and take them on. I revert to type by working in isolation, and admit or acknowledge that I like working like that.
Although I would happily show the piece, in a way it is work made for me and in accordance to the MA, but it is not really work for the audience. The second I finished it I started thinking about new work, quite different and with other layers of appeal. Construction is work from the inside, and as such, I think it is fairly successful, or at least accurate. It's work, after all, about years of making work, trying to get it shown, and not really getting anywhere. I end up making work that is a bit unshowable. It's also about the futility of doing a degree and an MA and still making secret beautiful things that may as well exist in a box.
The frustration of creativity perhaps. Even all the work and expertise is a bit invisible.
Watching the piece all again, I really like the abrupt changes in sound. That's quite deliberate. I wanted to make the viewer suspect that there are things going on they don't know about, like people are passing by, in other corridors perhaps, who know what they are doing, while in the piece there is uncertainty and a little paranoia that things should be different, that you should really know what's going on more than you do, and, like in a slight nightmare, you pretend everything is alright.
I was thinking of Franz Kafka's The Burrow short story when I was making Construction. It's such a sad work, about a mole-like creature's train of thought as he tries to build up his burrow system against invaders. The last time I read it tears streamed down. Perhaps I should rename Construction - The Burrow.
Perhaps after all it is all too psychological.
Sometimes work can be deliberately unresolved, like a painting. Why not moving image. Construction is a major introspection, and I am unresolved.
4th October 2013
...................................................................................................................................................................
Angela added some comments later:
Additional comments added by AR post tutorial on 3.10.2013
Firstly, the importance of showing and sharing work during it's development and being careful not to take work to completion in isolation.
Secondly, the need for objectivity and even more rigorous critique on work that has been a deep or profound psychological experience.
Finally beware of rationalising what may still be a work in process, give something the space to breathe before you declare it resolved.
...................................................................................................................................................................
I have also been thinking through the piece and the assessment, trying to be objective and take on what really happened. In a way, every course such as degrees and MAs have their crisis. I have certainly had other crisis before, but they have been more to do with the course and understanding the questions. By crisis I don't mean a drama, but a decisive point, perhaps subtle, that indicates the point of a true shift. Perhaps this is my crisis in work. At last I've got to it. Perhaps I don't feel I really reached that before.
I'm still happy with the piece Construction, but I'm also aware of its insularity. I agree with Angela's comments and take them on. I revert to type by working in isolation, and admit or acknowledge that I like working like that.
Although I would happily show the piece, in a way it is work made for me and in accordance to the MA, but it is not really work for the audience. The second I finished it I started thinking about new work, quite different and with other layers of appeal. Construction is work from the inside, and as such, I think it is fairly successful, or at least accurate. It's work, after all, about years of making work, trying to get it shown, and not really getting anywhere. I end up making work that is a bit unshowable. It's also about the futility of doing a degree and an MA and still making secret beautiful things that may as well exist in a box.
The frustration of creativity perhaps. Even all the work and expertise is a bit invisible.
Watching the piece all again, I really like the abrupt changes in sound. That's quite deliberate. I wanted to make the viewer suspect that there are things going on they don't know about, like people are passing by, in other corridors perhaps, who know what they are doing, while in the piece there is uncertainty and a little paranoia that things should be different, that you should really know what's going on more than you do, and, like in a slight nightmare, you pretend everything is alright.
I was thinking of Franz Kafka's The Burrow short story when I was making Construction. It's such a sad work, about a mole-like creature's train of thought as he tries to build up his burrow system against invaders. The last time I read it tears streamed down. Perhaps I should rename Construction - The Burrow.
Perhaps after all it is all too psychological.
Sometimes work can be deliberately unresolved, like a painting. Why not moving image. Construction is a major introspection, and I am unresolved.
4th October 2013
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