BOW 3: Coursework, part ii

1. I wrote about Joachim Schmid in DI&C and have been very influenced by his practice ever since. I love his notion of ecologically and pictures – and wholeheartedly agree with Berger’s statement that once everything is being photographed, photographs will become meaningless. This seems, in my mind, to have happened in this stage of late-Capitalism. But that’s another story/blog post – or indeed my essay! As you can see in this scan, I have found this particular passage on Schmid from Fontcuberta’s book incredibly helpful and influential.

2. Frank, Alex Soth – before reading about this, I had already purchased a short video from eBay, a stranger’s first film which I will/may work with. We are asked in the file what we think about the ethical issues  – there is a question about privacy. Artists should be exploring the boundaries between private and public and there are far more boundary-breaking works out there. There is an interesting article in this month’s Tate mag which I will find later exploring the question of art/ethics/respect for others, the earth, etc. A major issue today in society is that everything is atomised into economic units, nothing is sacred, one’s own trauma, deviance, intimate states and feelings. And so that needs to feature in the work, even when it intrudes on privacy. But there are lines each artist and audience member must find for themselves.

3. This is about chance and David Bates accidents discussed. A more up to date example might be Collin Pantell’s broken camera images which I enjoy far more than the All Quiet on the Home Front images, which frighten me a bit. But the broken camera ones are really interesting and somehow unzip what I sense in the others. There’s a horror in the lack of cohesion which I’d rather face so I like these. I also used unwound film and flaws in an exercise I did for DI&C.  and am far more interested in this type of image than the perfect toothpaste advert ones others enjoy.

4. We are asked if these projects are a case of the Emperors New Clothes  – I know there are plenty who think so. I am more comfortable with such things and always looking for the kind of sensation of strangeness I enjoyed when watching silhouette cartoons as a child, or looking through my Viewmaster (I LOVED that toy so much).

Answers to some questions we are asked:

• Is the work taking a direction of its own? I think so – I feel like I started with a very wide net and caught nothing for a long time, but little bumps of growth are appearing (excuse the mixed metaphors) – although some die quickly and disappear.
• Strategy working? I am making things now, I really needed to do that. I must stick to this. I could lose it if not.
• Am I resisting a certain direction – I am surprised to be focused on making a book rather than a film but I think that will come. It feels right to be focused in this direction.
• Yes, the material in this section is very much my sort of thing
• How has chance played a role? I ordered the film from eBay and had no idea what was on it, was a bit lost when I looked at it, but have decided to include it for now as one aspect rather than the containing element. Making the little dummy booklet was good because things I’d planned went wrong and I ended up using those wrong things – printing one page on two by accident – will use that. Finding a cut-out paragraph that works on the front cover. Making a mistake and covering it up with something I had lying around actually is a good idea which fits. It was very useful indeed. Using Processing to make things randomly. etc.