six week residency

my legs ache and i feel irritable.

a good day !

(i arrived this morning to another opportunity to document work made at the studio. we discussed and arranged the adaptive space and somehow the flow of the shoot was interrupted by expected visitors and the guy with the kite.

he’d popped round on the off chance that i’d be free to go with him to record some more escapades with kite and board. he’d bought another toy, a little camera that would allow for other shots not possible with bulky dv stuff.

in the wind that was a whirl i lept into his car and off we sped.

before we got heads into a position to forcibly travel forward, yet more visitors. men looking for boys on a motocross bike nicked from a place of work. we were both very sympathetic as neither of us had seen the young whipper snappers.

i spent an enjoyable afternoon playing with toys and laughing-well being amused by – other kite exponents who seemed to have much differing styles to the young man i was with. (i’m pleased to report that the guy i was with was the one i would have wanted to be doing stuff with, if i was sat on a chair on the bank, observing the kiters while waiting for an over head display.)

the young man in question has footage shot from the camera with attached to his helmet, i think i’ve already mentioned his helmet and the work i did on it. seems i am having conversations that will result in a video piece, representing the feeling for the young man when flying. it doesn’t have to be a deep piece, for me it’s fun to be playing again, making shots and potentially making something from what we get.

when i stopped and relaxed this evening, i realised that going out with a very vague intention, which itself was specific, meant that relaxing and reflecting left me feeling very tired. there wasn’t the satisfaction of setting to get specific shot and getting to the evening having achieved it. i have experienced that, one shoot that springs to mind was for a solpadine commercial.)

we did experimental film making this afternoon !

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“love life i suppose” david hockney.

i got to the studio this morning to find an excited atmosphere. work being made for an exhibition in october was to be photographed for print and publicity. little did i expect what was to follow.

i was invited to take photographs, using the adaptive space at the studio and the available equipment. it was ace. i got to play with 3 dimensional objects, with lighting and camera angle and exposure and all that goes with that process. a process that does become very collaborative at the point of saying ‘what do you think’ when there is an image to look at on the back of the camera.

“…i go for a special effect of that day” david hockney.

after the shoot, there were two images that met with the artist’s approval, who subsequently left me an email address and left to pursue another day’s journey. i was happy to have the opportunity to process the two images and prepare them for both print and web usage. i’ve had feedback that the images are very much approved of.

having been in the moment, the present, after lunch were doings connected to past and future.

…”do you have a feeling that it is empty?” david hockney.

“do we know what an empty room looks like?” david hockney.

future plans involve a support plan and development of an idea. i’m pleased to be feeling that i’m able to be in the moment, doing, and also be able to set up potential for my future doing. this is a recent development, of which i am very happy.

something else i’ve been pleased with today is doing connected with a past doing. i made a website for a person who runs a company providing equipment and support for projects. i didn’t realise that when i set up the site it would be so difficult to find a process by which it was possible to document and demonstrate what was possible. today we achieved that, from their initiation and me making a connection. i feel very pleased.

“well…in your head you can go anywhere.” david hockney.

“…there’s a kind of emptiness, which the colour is trying to hide.” damian hurst.

“never believe what an artist says, only what they do. walter siket.” david hockney.

“i’m still to active in it to be reflective.” david hockney.

i realise that lack of a focus allows for a focus to have a place.

yesterday i had a day where i vaguely remember being hard on myself for not having a focus, where actually there needn’t be one. today i’ve spent some time focussing on those things that i feel are subconscious joys of doing. ok, i struggle to find words sometimes.

i’ve continued playing with you tube. i notice that depending on what the title and tags are, the related videos vary greatly. the best find so far is connected with the high energy film on you tube. it’s connected me with 992 videos of public toilets. i write 992 and remember that was the number of sneezes i recorded in the 11 months i kept count.

focussing today on things i want to do after this residency has finished has left me feeling optimistic and perhaps more likely to relax into this time of creative research, i so have to be careful how i write about my time, if i write like i talk about it, i’m sure i wouldn’t be taken seriously.

attached is the collection of moments from yesterday’s morning out. i like how one moment flows into another, like they are all choreographed and connected.

i’ve tried doing some stuff today. it’s turned into a kind of self test about creativity. i’ve been looking through some old vhs tapes, after this morning’s walk and recording some things i saw. the tapes were recorded ten years ago. i brought a few tapes to play with to the studio this afternoon. there was drawing and plastering and cursing going on and me there playing with an old vhs deck and a mini dv camcorder.

i’ve uploaded some short clips to you tube. i feel deflated instead of inflated. i conclude that what i’m doing is not creative. what i am doing is merely placing on line some clips from a broadcast programme, with specialist interest to those who like racing and motorcycles and might be interested to see some archive footage from racing ten years ago.

so what can i do with archive of broadcast footage, to be creative and be interesting to watch? i guess because i’m asking that suggests that i’m not ever going to be able to do anything creative with the collection of tapes that i have. the best that i could do with it is to make some sort of edit from it, processing the material, altering it’s formal qualities. now there’s the rub. i like motorcycling, so to challenge the formal properties of the footage is to alter, and i don’t know if i want to do that, especially as 10 years ago the machinery was quite different to today.

the best i might do is to make a first year degree student style edit, for editing practice and for the fun of it.

i’m being hard on myself now.

this morning i used the device to capture two periods of moments. very observational, very much me seeing something special and recording what i saw. still thinking of hockney, what skill do i have to make that everyday scene special? which leaves me thinking, why is hockney’s skill related item special. is it because it is a painting and there has been a long history of painting and as such adds to that long line. the high definition video i have of the collection of moments, is part of a recent spin off of broadcast development. something that has happened so fast, it is seemingly still very new and fresh and as such has to be used in that manner.

maybe the lack of boundaries is causing me to be defocused and as such wander uncontrollably at the moment. or…

this is research for something i don’t yet know about, and as such i can’t intellectualise about it as i know not of it. while in this research period, i see that there does not have to be a focus on audience, as this research is into process and not outcome. as it is process research, the notion of communicating something can be somewhat vague, as the action of research in itself communicates something. indeed, if everything that i did was viewable, it would be intereptable as it was being viewed.

wow i’ve counter argued against myself about not being creative.

i come back to hockney and his warning. it’s about what i do. what i’m doing at the moment doesn’t feel meaningful. i thought the looking through the old vhs tapes would have been more meaningful. it’s only been one tape and so far at a personal level i have enjoyed hearing the names of riders i’ve not heard for a while, however i see the looking at the tapes as a personal recollection, a bit like looking at old photographs of past holidays.

oh my goodness. the collection becomes my window of my past, it’s happy times defined by motorcycling, all the other stuff of the time, long been forgotten. if that’s the case, i can go through the tapes looking for interesting moments, there’s hours of tapes. if i do do it, i need to maintain a balance.

week two begins and i’m a little at a loss. i took the weekend off and got out and did some lovely things.

i seem to have spent all day talking. talking about the hockney imagine programme, the chap with his video camera strapped to his head, someone else about plans for the autumn, arts derbyshire as a site to promote oneself and the benefits of a community website, if that website is updated by members of the community and not just the agency set up to promote the person who set it up.

i did get a little making today. i took the image from friday and worked it a little more. i’d shown it to several people and i think the most interesting response was to do with how with part of the full image missing, it left a much more ambiguous picture. ambiguity is good, i’m a big fan of ambiguity. i’d say hockney with his yorkshire painting was into interpretation. there was an interesting section of the film where the narrator pointed out what he was looking at and then what hockney was looking at. i really liked his landscapes that were colourful, used perspective and had recognisable fields in them. his comments about memory were good too, even though now i’ve mentioned them i can’t be more specific what he’d said.

hockney also had a commentary about photographs. i find myself with this new device having fun taking pictures again. i was out at the weekend and came across beetle and chip. having the ability to create a recognisable cast of the scene, very quickly, and take it away is special. hockney’s point seemed to be that he found scenes where perhaps others would not. his skill made them special through the realisation of his cast of the scene.

i think i’m getting the sense of a source either being historical or of the moment. hockney definitely was the latter. art education promotes the first. if the artist becomes the bastion of history, presenting aesthetically pleasing renditions of past events, are we going to be presented with items from which we can learn and grow? if the artist becomes the bastion of the moment, presenting aesthetically pleasing casts of moments in the future, are we looking at the world through rose coloured spectacles, not admitting where we have become to?

around me on the residency are items that have a history. if i use any of them, what is my position about their historical context? can i find it out and use some of it, or do i simply use the item in the moment? in the moment suggests a sort of pleasure seeking thing, i would hope for something a little more meaningful.

clearly something for me to consider. clearly i need to do more, stop talking. as hockney quoted someone ‘…never believe what an artist tells you, just believe what they do.’

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