Category: Writing

Posts which have some amount of my own writing included.

WRITING—Of Interest?

If you look at the archives section in the sidebar (to the right of the main page), and if you’ve been observant, you may just have noticed that I added a little tally of the total number of posts in each month. Having done so, I was intrigued to see that the busiest month was June 2005, a couple of months after I created the blog.

This could be for a number of reasons: it might have been the point at which I really got into posting on the blog and got a bit over-excited about it; or it may have simply been a high-news month.

Looking at the posts in that month I noticed that a consistent factor was that they were all fairly short, which obviously would make it easier to write many over a short period of time. But what also gave me pause for thought was the subject-matter. At that time I was solely writing about what interested me, with no ulterior motive (as such). Contrast that with today, and the slowing down of posts, and I’m now concentrating on material related to the college course, which—although of interest to me—one could define as outside-led rather than purely my own initiative.

So what does this tell me? It struck me that I should try to be including posts now that should also have the same sort of interest factor, and not just be dry explications of stuff I’ve read.

To do this will require – what? Perhaps re-acquainting myself with artworks, and look for their parallels with the texts. Find the personal connection that prompted the effusion of posts back then and which has been watered down since.

I don’t know exactly what the answer is. I have to think about this.

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COLLEGE—Creative Journal

This is something that I should have done a long time ago, but have eternally procrastinated about.

For the Core Course we are expected to write a “Creative Journal” every week, discussing some aspect of the course and our response to it. I’ve found this incredibly hard to do, it’s become almost some kind of mental block with me now. However, it counts for 50% of the mark for this part of the course, so I have decided to buckle down and start really working on it.

Technically, I should have been writing c.200 words a week since the beginning of the course, so by the end I would have around 4,400 words in total. I have so far written 800 words, and most of that was at the beginning of last term. So essentially I have a lot of catching up to do.

I thought I would turn this con into a pro (as I always try to do . . . ) by creating a journal which makes a virtue out of this stalled process. My thought was that the journal itself would reflect the lapses between writings in it’s structure in some way. I think this will manifest itself as some kind of timeline running through the book with massive gaps at the beginning, with (hopefully) a more consistent set of writings from now on.

I feel this would be an interesting exposition of my process and failings. The question however is, how relevant is this to the subject-matter of the journal (and of course, does it need to be)? Perhaps one can be too open and honest about some things and perhaps there are things that are best left unsaid?

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BLOG—Where are you?

In response to a comment made by Claire in the Lab presentation last week, I’ve added a map to the sidebar to show where the visitors to this site are visiting from. This is a first step to paying more attention to my audience, something that I’ve been reticent to do in the past.

Shi also commented that this blog is really very closed off towards the visitor. I’m really using it to talk to myself, with a very controlling hand over the impression that I put across.

To be honest, I’ve never really been too interested in the visitor – I don’t really think I have anything interesting to say to people, it’s more the activity of saying something that’s important to me. I don’t really ask anything of the visitor except their time and patience, they can take or leave this blog as they wish. I’m mainly using it as an archive of data and events that are relevant to me.

However, in the presentation I was stressing the activity of presenting as an end in itself, either in person in front of a group, or on the blog (or elsewhere). Well, that’s all well and good for me, but why should anyone else care?

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PRESENTATION—Lab Presentation—Notes and recording

Here are my notes for today’s presentation. A recording of the event is at the end of the post.

Introduction

As I’m sure is true for all of us, I’ve found this course to be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride. Not only from day to day, but from lecture to lecture, and even within each lecture I can go from elation to depression in the course of a few minutes.

What I think this shows is that I’m at least being challenged by the work we’re doing, which has to be a good thing, when all is said and done. I keep telling myself, when the tasks seem insurmountable, that if I wasn’t feeling this way I wouldn’t have any way of knowing when I was up against my limits and potentially making progress.

There is a distinct difference between this presentation and the first. The first was an introduction to me and my life up until the point at which I entered Goldsmiths, concentrating on personal, anecdotal evidence.

Review the first presentation

List of objects:

  • DVD: Jacques Tati’s Playtime (my sense of humour, modernism, architecture in general)
  • Some Monopoly houses (suburbia – my upbringing, architecture)
  • my iPod (music, electronica)
  • A small maquette for a sculpture (lovely objects, my interest in art)
  • 2 of my own artworks – the erratum slips and the Malevich book (the work I was producing while at College)

New objects

List of objects:

  • Performance
  • Blog
  • Deleuze and Guattari

This time around I’ll talk about specific things which have developed during the course and which I hope will develop during this term and beyond.

Perhaps the main theme (or problematic) of last term was my search for a hook within the course subject-matter on which I could hang my own interests and (potential) work. This has only very recently started to become clear to me.

Up until the end of last term I think I was somewhat at a loss as to how the course actually intersected with my own interests. The main problem being that I’m not sure what my interests are at this point, which obviously makes any kind of connection and subsequent progression difficult. This has always been a problem for me – even before we started this course I was viewing it as more of a move away from a negative than towards a positive, real goal.

Diagrams/Performance

But the presentation that I did with Ian in the last week of term clarified some things for me. Certainly what I enjoyed most in this presentation was the analysis of the display of the Beuys work at the tate, and—perhaps more pertinently—the representation of that analysis through diagrams and performance during the presentation itself.

In relation to this presentation I’ve started making links with aspects of previous work I’ve done (specifically my activities at Middlesex University doing my first degree, where I would write and “perform” those writings). So the writing, and performance of those writings; the concern with space and perceptions of space; the systems of awareness and control of space—I can see this as a method for future work which will now be placed on a far more informed basis than anything I was able to do in the past.

Blog

As a parallel exercise, over the past few years I’ve been keeping a blog on my website. This serves as a repository of thoughts and comments on what’s been happening to me. At the same time I’m seeing this more and more as another performance space for my writings, another area in which they are being presented.

Deleuze & Guattari

Another thing which is developing is my interest in Philosophy.

In what at first appeared to be a huge mistake I chose to take the Philosophy and… course. I originally came to it wanting to improve my knowledge and experience in this subject, but wasn’t prepared for the obscurity of the teaching. To begin with it was very disheartening to have to sit through lectures week after week and not be able to grasp the point of anything that was being talked about. Here was a situation where I felt completely out of my depth, but at the same time knew that I was learning something completely new that could only expand my thought processes, as painful as it felt.

At this point in time I don’t claim to have much more of a clue about what it’s all about, but I have been introduced to some authors whose work I’ve found interesting. I was particularly taken with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Right now I’m attempting to write an essay on the concept of ‘the refrain’ as a musical motif as well as a wider concept applicable to other forms of art and society. This is described in frustratingly obtuse detail in their book A Thousand Plateaus. Needless to say I’m finding it quite ‘interesting’ (and challenging). For me, it’s a new way of thinking and thinking about thinking, and I’m keen to see where it leads me.

Conclusion

So essentially my objects are the writing – represented by the blog; the performance – represented by this presentation; and the philosophy – represented by this book, as my objects for this presentation.

I can’t tell you what implications these objects will have for my future activities – that remains to be seen.

Recording – 24mins (Ogg Vorbis format – 10.6MB)

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