A Game of Chance
OK. Deep breaths. It’s the last term of the course.
I feel… strangely detached from the idea of the Thesis Show, the culmination of two years of non-stop, intensive creativity.
Perhaps this may be due to the fact that as an international student none of my friends and family from the UK will really ever get an experience of this exhibition. The culmination of two years of work and life apart that has only been discussed over video chats on skype.
Perhaps this may be due to the fact that to my relief, my professor told me not to worry, work hard, and that the show will definately not be what I imagine due to the sheer number of graduating MFA students and the exhibition space allocated.
Perhaps this may also be due to the possibility of living on a remote Scottish island with a dog, chickens and most likely unemployment.
Perhaps I can turn the unemployment into self-employment.
The words perhaps, change and chance. These seem to be words that artists continually address, both in creative life and personal life.
Re-assess and Re-visit
Critiques are done and I’m feeling hopefull. Things….worked out. I was surprised having worked on one video piece for the semester, editing and re-editing, recording and re-recording, thinking and discarding and thinking some more.
One of these pieces that doesn’t come out of thin air (if they even do that really). Re-assess and re-visit is difficult but rewarding too.
1. Pathos is generated by a human subject / presence
2. Working with a reduction strategy – be careful as to how much you reduce and wht you loose through this process
3. Think carefully about what you take forward from previous works.
Go with your original instinct. This piece has been all about trying to figure out what is isn’t, in reverse order to my frustration. It’s been a challenge to my expectations and methodologies.
1. It’s not about me personally.
2. It is about the absurd.
3. It is about the action and decision of choosing to interact with a specific object.
4. What I ask is considered but not my ultimate goal or attention.
5. The incongruous within humour.
The absurd and futility of everything. Using the 8 ball as a tool for divination with no expectations whatsoever.
Items: questions // magic 8 ball // anxiety
My first foray into incorporating written text into my digital video practice. It’s proving interesting. Having put text with the moving image through editing I realised that I don’t think it’s working. I can’t really tell how exactly but it just feels wrong and it’s not doing what I want it to.
Today I recorded my voice reading along a series of questions I want answered or that I think about in terms of my life. These are slowly being modified as I revisit them over again. The moment I was done with the recording and into the sound studio to edit it felt different. The spoken word now adds another very personal and accessible dimension to the footage that I don’t think was there previously. It become more about an individual than an interaction with an object.
I think I am getting bogged down with the different elements in the piece, like it’s become too complicated and what I want to communicate is becoming lost.
A Constructed Sense of Place
One important issue for me is that I have visited these places and have personal memories and images about them. Another thing is that they are locations and periods of my life that I have shared with another person.
Audio Componenets
– clear / clarity / close mic / a peculiar sense of believeability of a real space within this piece – A Bellwater Cricket
The issue of recording a document and leaving it as it is. This rule is not for everybody. You have to be aware of approaches to your work and be clear of your intentions.
1. exactly as they are
2. collage works
3. It’s OK to make both – selective of what elements are within the recording and when to use these two apporaches.
