BOW: A3 script rather than a ​manifesto

After writing last night, I thought about where I am.

  • Why am I making a book with attempts at still life when I’ve been finding my way with moving image of one sort or another?
  • I definitely want to include some sort of moving image element any installation
  • I wondered if this move away from moving image was promoted by a comment which I felt came with a little jab about the course being a ‘photography degree’.
  • That comment was good though because it consolidated the direction I was going in, and suddenly things started to make sense – a doorway – exploring the boundaries we place around categories of various forms of image-making
  • This reconfiguring of boundaries is exactly what my essay is about, an examination of the ‘cut’. Where do we place boundaries and differentiation? Given the changes to our world, we should not assume anything and so I am looking specifically at the making of images before the broad spectrum of different disciplines emerge. (See my post  – Life After New Media) 
  • When I was an actor I would sometimes stick my script in a book especially if it was a photocopy and then make notes and draw in the booklet. The script would end up being covered in all sorts of doodles.
  • And so, I decided the word manifesto on the cover should be replaced with ‘script’ and the subheading is now scaled right back (see below)
  • This suggests I might/should create the script of ‘cuttings’ and then make some sort of film/performance based on it thereafter (A4/A5)
  • I spent tonight printing what I have so far (although dismissed some of the texts for now) and ordered a handful of images last night too.
  • I have printed on different materials – paper, newsprint, transparency, tracing paper etc.
  • I have a tiny 13.5 x 9.5 book and printed everything to fit on these tiny pages so that I can make a mini-book mock-up, including texts that will fold out. (I guess at least one image should do that too.) See incoherence – page 118 Edgar Martins book, essay by Roger Luckhurst – ‘work to derail the over-coherence any series or display … inevitably imposes’
  • By using different materials I hope I am beginning to ‘artistically’ emulate the Standard Model of Reality. This does feel ‘ridiculous’ and any scientist would probably laugh but by using different materials, different media, layers of meaning and symbolism rather than focusing on one single isolated/discrete object, I hope I somehow addressing the ‘Cartesian habit’.Below: Standard model flow cart, one image of my efforts this evening – a photograph printed on graph paper and a cover currently printed on newsprint and will stick with a found portrait. Will upload a video and shots of the little booklet when it’s made.
  • Finally, the little booklet is a small precious thing. Gold has emerged as a key theme along with brown paper and second-hand objects. Like the themes in the text query and challenge reductionism and commodification.
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8 thoughts on “BOW: A3 script rather than a ​manifesto

    1. After reading your comment, I spent ages staring at my bookshelf knowing I own it but not seeing it anywhere… thankfully just as I was about to give up, I found it peeking out from behind another book. I’ve not looked at it in ages but on first glance I seem to have underlined some pertinent and useful sentences inc. ‘if everything were continuously being photographed, every photograph would become meaningless’ which is flipping perfect! Thank you!

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  1. Still life, still image. Aren’t ‘stills’ used to advertise film anyway?

    I’m with you on the ‘photography degree’ aspect because I keep wanting to include drawings.

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    1. As long as you can justify it, and have some photos too, I don’t see the problem. Yes, re the stills – all my work includes reversing or stopping the movement of film in any case. I just wasn’t sure how these experiments fitted but I’ve found a way as described

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