a few thoughts
In the past few days I had some discussions with students and friends based in the way artists research and use their ‘materia prima’ and research. It is great to see that students still question such fundamental aspects of their work (such a great aspect of the art school) – fluctuating indecisively between a more direct “intellectual free”way and with a more academic and systematic approach that involves books, reading note keeping and a clear distillation of ideas into compressed pockets of information. In that respect if research is dealt as a split experience from all other creative practices that are in the students everyday life the ‘issue with the approaches to research’ will always remain as complicated as the individual-student who is trying to do it.
Moreover, there isn’t always a smooth conscious transition between the two ends of the intellectualised free and and the intellectualised approach and although there is great benefit of informing ones work from both it is sometimes impossible to voluntarily switch between the two. It might be that the two ends merge through the embodied experience of making something which is physically and mentally pleasing. It might be that process allows the two ends of the brain/body to merge into a singular gesture and the intellectual acquires a gestural and expressive ‘anima’ that wasn’t there. I guess for that reason art cannot be classified as a science. The difference between the two isn’t in principle but in methodology and classification. It is true though that the ways and methods we apply to Art are closer to those of athletics and to meditative and spiritual practices where spiritual experience is embodied with physical and social activity. Nevertheless there is not set recipe on how we make art and why should be – my question is: should this apply to other fields? and is this a key to some kind of wisdom that artists should share with other people? – Seek embodiment not splitting.
on a different note
For the past two years I have been accumulating notes that I store away and forget about very quickly. These are thoughts about potential tweets, quotes, sculptural proposals, thoughts about death, life and love.
Most of these notes had been in digital form for a while stored somewhere in my computer and in folders that comprise a larger unit of work others are just stored in a general folder of “texts and writings”, others stay on my phone as digital notes.
Pulling those notes out of their digital unconscious is an important but tedious process.
As part of the micro residency I have attempted to filter those that I believe bear some kind of poetic or lyrical ambiguity.
Folding up the print outs of those notes (A4’s) whilst allowing disparate parts of units to merge or emerge as single ‘objects’ is an attempt to create new associations.
