Where I’m at right now….

• I have a  meeting with Matt White on Monday and waiting to hear from Ruth te A2.
• I feel the Pic London project introduced me to useful ideas, concepts, and practices that were good to come into contact with. The actual work produced feels more exploratory and research-led than anything  – however, the image of the inside of the cave which has been in my work previously seems to have played a significant role. I am not sure how I take some of my frustrations forward re. the group’s inability to make the improvisations function. I have thought about attempting it with other people. I could suggest trying it with the Pic London group but I am not sure they are up for it. It’s very difficult to read what’s going on there – perhaps because we were only ever able to talk online, I cannot work it out. One of the things I noticed in the Ballpark Collective’s statement is how very clear the rules were and how they didn’t speak about the work outside of the game:
• “The parameters of this involve creating a moving image from 5 individual works, each made by one of the artists. Through the random act of ‘pulling sticks,’ the collective decided on a chronological order to respond and react. The artist who pulled the shortest straw started the process by creating a moving image piece based on their response to the theme Interdependence. The work was presented to the next artist, who then responded with a work informed by their interpretation, or reaction to it. There was no discussion between the artists outside the ritual of passing the work to the next, allowing the process to highlight individual perspectives and the gaps in communication. When the process was complete, each of the works was edited together to create a whole.” (2019)
• The cave is something I looked at as far back at TAOP (before I’d looked at Plato’s Cave in UVC) See – https://www.sarahjanefield.co.uk/Colour-Assignment-Slideshow/n-GMdPr/
• These images seemed to be expressing a sense of existing in what I referred to as my ‘grief cave’. I think I even wrote a short thing about it – falling into the cave and bumping into a projection down there, an imp who played tricks and wasn’t real but was.
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• I need to revisit some work I began last year which I called “Manipulated: My Leica and I, Leica Amateurs show their Pictures (1937) rephotographed, edited, uploaded; phone & proprietary apps only (c)SJField2018. Some examples from the page at the end of this blog. However, I am not sure about continuing with the Leica book for BOW but I may transfer the basic premise to another or film or text of some description. https://www.instagram.com/fieldsarahjane Also, the experiments there are too static, not dynamic enough. (Not that all need to be the same – variety of unstable imagery was what I was going for – also the base image needs to move and come out of its place.)
• There is so much that makes me cringe in this S&O A3 project but it was a turning point while studying with the OCA for me and is definitely worth revisiting. https://ocasjf.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/draft-assignment-3-filters-voice-and-speech-lessons-for-the-theatre/
• Returning to the TAOP A3 (colour) assignment briefly – As far back as then I was focused on the use of the word theatre which has so often been associated with photography  – I included the following slide at the start of the assignment:
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• It’s been fascinating reading through Fried and then various responses to his thoughts on theatricality and anti-theatricality, and then seeing the use of the words performativity used by Barad. I’ve noticed several related words on the Contents page of Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice: Materialisms, Activisms, Dialogues, Pedagogies, Projections 2017 [PDF] – such as dance, masked, imaginary, rehearsal, acting out, play. I think Fried’s negation of theatre is a complete misnomer and that theatre and theatricality are at the core of what it is to be.
• I really had no idea that I would find myself revisiting the first dissertation (1994). This has all come about after asking other students for an alternative view to James Elkins’ statement that photography might actually be rather dull. Freid was recommended and now here I am – See previous blogs on Barad – performativity, and Rubenstein on theatricality and Fried. I have no copy of my first dissertation and no way of finding one. I could barely write at the time but I suspect it dragged my overall grade up from a 2.2 to a 2.1.  I looked at the ritualistic origins of theatre. I explored ‘commune’. One of the things I noticed in the Rubenstein response to Freid was how everyone sees theatre as intrinsically about representation, a separateness between viewer and action, othering – but it strikes me that the origins of theatre are about oneness – an attempt to re-engage with the universe rather than draw away from it. It’s an early church.
• I wrote about trying to create a universe in my BOW A2. Theatre is a reality laboratory. It’s not about trying to create a fake. Well, at least, once Stanislavski got hold of it, it no longer was. And then there’s the Method. Maybe Stansilavski was simply taking theatre back to its origins. Isn’t it funny that the fakeness of a diorama is where photography purportedly began (putting aside Azoulay’s ant-Cartesian reading of the origins of photography). I feel I do need to revisit these ideas – although I am not sure how just yet.

Below – a couple of the Manipulated (2018) posts. Visit for more.