MA Journal
If you are viewing this on a small screen, full screen is advisable.
NB: Although I compiled this video as a powerpoint at just over five minutes, when converted to mp4 the duration lengthened to over seven. I have a copy which compresses the length of play but the transitions are too fast for easy reading of the script.
By way of an introduction to my practice and projected area of investigation to fellow course students, I have been given five minutes to present an overview of my recent practice and project proposal next group session. It is never easy to summarise what one does in a short amount of time but getting to the point is always a good exercise in extracting the essence of what one does. It can also leave many questions unanswered which I hope will foster future engagements and lead to new thoughts and ideas. Each word has weight, each phrase needs to convey enough information to say something worthwhile yet remain open, the overall has to hang together but avoid being restrictive. This is particularly true of a video that has to give a sense of what I am about in three hundred and sixty seconds, give or take a few. Then you are always left with the possibility of misunderstandings, assumptions, lack of clarity or focus; then ambivalence may be one of my areas of interest and this seems to be a good place to start.
I was excited, very excited as I waited this morning for the first chat session. 1 The simplest explanation would be that I had been waiting for some time to get a glimpse of my class mates and get started on this journey… at one in the afternoon. The excitement of a first day at school… without the nerves. What did I do? I prepared a lunch of chicken, spices, rice and salad.
So, we went through some housekeeping, introduced one another and talked about this and that. At this stage the content was not so important. What mattered was that the process had had its baptism. The reigns of enrolment released for some and eased for others as a new sort of family was born into the web.
However, this is no ordinary community, it is one that spans the world from Vancouver to China and dives into an ocean of ideas that can reach significant depths. Each creature in this ocean occupies a particular niche. But individual ecologies are not fixed in this world, they are adaptive and mutable. The progenies are what the individuals do, to be exposed to scrutiny in a special, nurturing environment. Underlying structures are loosened like the genes from some primeval helix and dispersed in a pool; precursors to something new, complex, wonderful.
The process is open, open to change and I can already see tiny movements in pieces, changing character, swapping places and giving way to new ones. Only tiny steps today, but discernible. Perhaps this is why I was excited before starting, because I knew that this was the beginning of things coming together, taking shape and standing on their own, but what shape? That is yet to come.
An Interview by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network East Midlands, as featured artist published 6th August 2018. I will also be taking over CVANEM Instagram account for the week 20 – 26 August.
This is an exciting time, a time for elastic thinking, synthesis and renewal. Having confirmed a place on the Fine Art Digital MA course some months ago, at Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London, my mind is now focused on what might be the trajectory I take during the next two years… and beyond.
Why do I think that the digital is an appropriate way to go? The reason for enrolling on this course lies deeper than that of being “in the moment”. The digital offers what I would call simultaneity. By this I mean, many layers of thought being articulated and rendered “visible” at one and the same time by means of different modalities and interfaces. The aim would be to facilitate the grasping of disparate ideas, explicating and synthesising them: practically speaking, “operatic” synthesis.
I see the next two years as a book to be opened and written in. An opportunity to foster flexibility and adaptability, exploration and experimentation. This needs plasticity and a willingness to dig deep into what lies beneath my practice, always adding and subtracting from what I do, changing. To do this requires that I organise my thoughts critically, but without losing a sense of the informal, the unexpected, harnessing both progression and contingency with thought and a certain degree of courage.
This is a time for deep research. What do I hope to achieve during this course? My hope is to expose the connective tissue of an evolving practice and generate transferable ideas that kindle a new fire. I look forward to discovering new ways of expressing current and future ideas that run through what I do. I cannot say for certain what these might be but I have had a glimpse of a pathway. It is a journey through ancient, modern and future landscapes. Trajectories that intersect into contemporary culture examining the balance between individual thinking and collective movements: the perennial question between the group, or state, and the individual, law and conscience, security and freedom. All these are reflected in the realm of the arts as in politics and society in general.
I feel the need to learn new ways of doing things and use new materials; both at a conceptual and practical level. It is a space where the synthesis of process and outcome exist in a dynamic equilibrium, ideas and their expression embraced in a reciprocal relationship. Existing in states of immanence and transcendence or put another way, a system functioning within changing boundaries, permeable to the environment, evolving, bearing fruit and an eternal waiting… is this not a description of sorts of a living organism?