I love to document things. I've realised this especially in recent years, now that I have multiple ways to capture various things and continue to build an archive of data and memories to look back on and extract from. it's kind of a love-hate relationship. there is a strange discomfort I feel sometimes, from the physical (of straining to record an entire duration of something, especially concerts, or malfunctions like a heated camera cutting off recording, battery life, or storage limit in memory cards - which I switch to another device immediately and also have backup memory cards) to the dramatic fear of and annoyance of knowing I cannot ever document every single moment I experience. If I could, I would document everything with every vessel possible, from all angles, the wide to zoom lens, the audio, etc.. but even if I could do that, it would still not be the real thing. It cannot be, it is not even an imitation trying to be the thing itself, because it came from the 'real' thing. is it a shadow of the real thing? if I document the documentation, how far removed is it from the real thing? - and how real is the real thing? what if this thing I experienced wasn't real - like artificial nature? like taxidermy? like a video online of a volcanic eruption? like digitally sculpted rooms or virtual tours of an already existing place? like a film constructed from sets and scripts?
I suppose the type of things mentioned are experiences I am documenting and collecting, then reconstructing or translating them into a new experience. I wonder if that new experience is real.
if I were to think about the visual proposal from this 'documentation' angle, would these drawings etc. be a form of documentation or records of the world I am experiencing from not really experiencing these 'real' things - e.g. the space shuttle challenger launch in the corner of my third drawing, and to a certain extent, these imaginary forms that floated out of the digital brush marks? (and what does the documentation of documentation mean about traumatic events? ideas surrounding this of course can be found in susan sontag regarding the pain of others) - of course, there is the reality of the 'completed digital work' that needs to be considered as well. I want to depict a truthful view of the world (from my perspective, as a half-fictional character who stumbled upon this world so obviously full of injustices and suffering beyond the surface layer that I also sadly enjoy contributing to a desensitization that develops stronger over time), but one that is playful and critical at the same time, perhaps like the amateur/dilettante that Mark Dion was talking about in the previous article on science and aesthetics. so, being able to look on these documenttaions of the good and bad with a lens that is constantly and easily changed or biased over time. time is a key element here.. time is the lived human experience. without documentation, would we have a history?
the fear of losing these personal documentations, is severe. it means losing memories. without images and videos and screen shots and screen recordings, especially of the mundane (because they are extra fragile in that they are more susceptible to being lost), I would not even have 'proof' (which could be unreliable) to this memory I have. or sometimes the image provokes a memory (which is also very much unreliable, and becomes less trustworthy overtime prone to manipulation).
the digital image says, I existed, I really did, at least in this permanent-temporary-abstract digital space. and if it depicts yourself, it says, I existed like this in this period of time with this set of skin cells and breathing rates and emotions, I was alive and breathing and moving and you are too, watching this documentation.
the digital video says this too, but I feel, with its audio and moving element, it gives a more well-rounded documentation of the atmosphere of the real thing. of course, it is by no means the real thing, but it is several steps closer - perhaps a third of the well-rounded circle. the limitations of framing and camera lens and compression of data and pixels and audio contributes to this too. audio is a whole other sense that can be particularly nostalgic - especially that of music. I also think dialogues, again, especially those mundane ones, can be playfully extracted from this source to be amplified into different meanings - there is so much potential in a film or video. you can look at it pixel by pixel and it still would give you so much information. (that's why dan's paintings are so fascinating to me, as well as the mechanical way in which he paints them) I love the word 'footage' because it is, at least the first search comes up as, the 'raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work,' suggesting that the original substance of the documentation has infinite potential to be something greater - or in some instances and from bias - become something less great than the unedited.
Bill Viola, Reasons For Knocking at an Empty House
p.99 ...This reincarnates one of the early curses of video art - "record everything," the saturation-bombing approach to life which made so many early video shows so boring and impossible to sit through. Life without editing, it seems, is just not that interesting.
and what about the looping/moving image or gifs? this is a strange in-between of the image and the video. essentially existing in an infinite repetition, what does this mean for the lifespan of this form? what does it mean when you stop viewing it, if it still loops without you viewing it (and in extension of that, all of the digital, how does it function when you are not looking - similar to the thinking around inanimate objects) and what about the looping image that has a seamless flow, where you cannot tell when it starts or ends? is it truly repeating itself? in contrast, we live our lives with the impossibility of repetition of experiences. with documentation, at the very least the footage you see will always repeat itself for you (but of course your experience of it will be monumentally different considering the context in which you view it). the argument of the repetition of habits or routine is also considerable. all of this falls under the mundane which is why it is so fascinating. and also why the thinking around 'the everyday' is too. (I've always felt the presence of this strange 'everyday'ness pressing down on me, some orchestration of objects or sights I see scream the everyday... it is still a phenomenon I don't quite understand, even after some investigation on this area in first year? I think in that essay) the word itself, the everyday is intriguing because it insinuates the repetition of a 'day', a growing collection of days, whilst being empty as being one single day or an umbrella term to generalise the living experience.. I think of what bill viola wrote in his writings again, how we only have the impression that our life is in discrete parts because of memory and sleep, feeling like a broken thread when in reality it is unbroken and continuous.
p.98 Possibly the most startling thing about our individual existence is that it is continuous. It is an unbroken thread - we have been living this same moment ever since we were conceived. It is memory, and to some extent sleep, that gives us the impression of a life of discrete parts, periods, or sections, of certain times or "highlights." Hollywood movies and the media, of course, reinforce this perception.
I also found this from my archive of quotes (documentation?) which speaks to what I was talking about above on the digital image (all from the book: Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House)
p.221 Images Tell Lies: Perception is the way we contact the world, it is the language of being yet the senses have traditionally been considered the source of illusion.
..Artificial images do not portray reality accurately. They aspire to the image and not to the object, to visual perception and not to the experiential mind field…. Of course, the reason why artificial images succeed us that they rely heavily on the viewer’s prior knowledge that, for example, objects do have all their sides. They involve the viewers knowledge bas in their functioning. Human beings, therefore, have always been an integral part of any technology of images. Perception is the input channel to the mind, and with new technologies, the call is first to the body, then the mind will follow.
and another extract that speaks on 'what is real' which I found was the most truthful and very valuable:
P.224 The Future of Technology is the Future of What is Real
With each new step in the evolution of technology, we take a step closer to our ideal of higher and higher quality, which actually means creating things that look more and more like nature itself…
…How close can we come to the true nature of things?
…in the end is the ultimate transparent state where there is no perceived difference between the simulation and reality, between ourselves and the other.
…As human beings we require limits and boundaries to function…
…Technology does constantly provoke us to ask what is real…
..When asked what is real, most people turn inwards, to their individual experience..they do not necessarily think of themselves standing there at the moment the question is asked. At that moment, of course, all these things are memories, mental images. Memory is the residing place of life experience, the collection that reveals and/or fabricates order and meaning. What is real, therefore, is what is psychologically meaningful. At one time in the past, the mythic and symbolic were real. Today, physical science has influences us to believe that the objects of the physical world are real. Yet, we surround ourselves with electronic images and transmitted information. Hollis Frampton called the movement in moving images “the movement of human consciousness itself. The images carry on our mental lives for us” he said, “darkly, whether we want them or not,” We already are, and always have been, in an imaginary landscape of perception.
*thoughts developed on the visual proposal from this post continued in another*
some other random points I'll drop down here (perhaps a growing list) to do with this line of thought...
-often find myself screenshotting / screen recording things I do online or especilaly interactions with people, I only consoiculsy realised this isn't a regular habit for most people..and the desire to have these saved in the highest quality is immense, i now use google photos for ease of automatic uploading and infinite storage, but the deal of not highest or original quality irks me. a little but I remind mseylf that I don't need the highest quality
-transcript- the errors... the repeated looping of segments trying to form words from these weird irregulars of human voices...it would be easier if this was all machine, and in some cases the machine works so much better, for best efficiency, but is that what our world should come to? again this speaks to a broad range of material like in sci fi , super computer of emotion - robot
-the 50 - 60 emails I have for drive, and the act of going into folders like 'invisible doors' (dorothea), and wallowing in memory lane as if it is a linear path when it is. aall rounded experience full of senses that might not have existed in the fist place
-desire to capture all angles of everything (=fear of losing experience, living?) (like screenshots
-memory lane
-keep forever, memory inevitably manipulated but digital forever same, but the way we view it makes it different , music feels different ..
-background noise, pixels , subject, why how document, presumption or expectation when filming
-'live in the moment' - ig posts i did about this
-something about japan photos (short lived, also wanting to go back and gone back for holiday)
-there is always a need for documentation it is never bad... (arguable ) someone always needs it
-relive the past not live in past enjoying the past in the present which in turn richens the future (future nostalgia)
-that is why the digital is so intertwined with this , my practice
-thinking upon taxidermy, (which seems so far from the digital but) (the glass like the screen, the form of documentation, the desire to retain as much information as possible ) that is a whole other level of documentation, the skin, retains, the research behind, archival practice and collection not unlike this blog
-documentation of nature which is so temporary and always in distraught , (poet oudoulf designing garden that lasts all year)
the concept of data - lilah fowler, data dirt...
-that is why video games so intriguing - video: the case for video games. gameplay with plot. gameplay that is 2D or click (Fran bow) gameplay that is distressing or on other end, completely relaxing - the addiction in gaming. immersion - like nature.
-the overlays or connectedness to nature.which seem like completely opposites in surface but really.
in show want 'human, nature, dream' - and maybe the digital is more subtle - but it is there in the digital drawing (pandemic and isolation) and also the monolith in collage and collages and even paintings I made , the process.
human, nature, dream, the digital/technology - human life...? ways in which these tie in with each other. (reword artist statement?)
(in this quarantine brought along interest in outer space - and human understanding and existenrial and interpretations of it i culture like films and video games and even music like the scores which can teach us so much about ourselves its always about ourselves...
whenever i feel sleepy i look on my phone and suddenly I'm weirdly recharged like i could be online forever (I did an old post about this on tumblr for the 'aesthetics'... maybe i can look back on those and use that material...) (show context like arcangel)
does documentation = desire to make a mark in the world or just an intimate personal thing. personal memories, if used as a material, does it mean anything to others?
tourist packages or holidays are a valuable source of investigation because it ties in all these things, by the possibility of travel and reaching new parts of the world, new memories, new nature, new images captures by technology, new material for your subconscious to use in dream collages
and there are endless ways to represent each thing(like text photograph video screen recording sculpture performance sound - and then the infinite combinations of processes) and how zoomed in of each thing is (which detail picked out how broad how you view one thing and interpret into another, (like three chairs) and that is why I constantly find it hard to navigate what to do, my head will explode, but very exciting
I suppose the type of things mentioned are experiences I am documenting and collecting, then reconstructing or translating them into a new experience. I wonder if that new experience is real.
if I were to think about the visual proposal from this 'documentation' angle, would these drawings etc. be a form of documentation or records of the world I am experiencing from not really experiencing these 'real' things - e.g. the space shuttle challenger launch in the corner of my third drawing, and to a certain extent, these imaginary forms that floated out of the digital brush marks? (and what does the documentation of documentation mean about traumatic events? ideas surrounding this of course can be found in susan sontag regarding the pain of others) - of course, there is the reality of the 'completed digital work' that needs to be considered as well. I want to depict a truthful view of the world (from my perspective, as a half-fictional character who stumbled upon this world so obviously full of injustices and suffering beyond the surface layer that I also sadly enjoy contributing to a desensitization that develops stronger over time), but one that is playful and critical at the same time, perhaps like the amateur/dilettante that Mark Dion was talking about in the previous article on science and aesthetics. so, being able to look on these documenttaions of the good and bad with a lens that is constantly and easily changed or biased over time. time is a key element here.. time is the lived human experience. without documentation, would we have a history?
the fear of losing these personal documentations, is severe. it means losing memories. without images and videos and screen shots and screen recordings, especially of the mundane (because they are extra fragile in that they are more susceptible to being lost), I would not even have 'proof' (which could be unreliable) to this memory I have. or sometimes the image provokes a memory (which is also very much unreliable, and becomes less trustworthy overtime prone to manipulation).
the digital image says, I existed, I really did, at least in this permanent-temporary-abstract digital space. and if it depicts yourself, it says, I existed like this in this period of time with this set of skin cells and breathing rates and emotions, I was alive and breathing and moving and you are too, watching this documentation.
the digital video says this too, but I feel, with its audio and moving element, it gives a more well-rounded documentation of the atmosphere of the real thing. of course, it is by no means the real thing, but it is several steps closer - perhaps a third of the well-rounded circle. the limitations of framing and camera lens and compression of data and pixels and audio contributes to this too. audio is a whole other sense that can be particularly nostalgic - especially that of music. I also think dialogues, again, especially those mundane ones, can be playfully extracted from this source to be amplified into different meanings - there is so much potential in a film or video. you can look at it pixel by pixel and it still would give you so much information. (that's why dan's paintings are so fascinating to me, as well as the mechanical way in which he paints them) I love the word 'footage' because it is, at least the first search comes up as, the 'raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work,' suggesting that the original substance of the documentation has infinite potential to be something greater - or in some instances and from bias - become something less great than the unedited.
Bill Viola, Reasons For Knocking at an Empty House
p.99 ...This reincarnates one of the early curses of video art - "record everything," the saturation-bombing approach to life which made so many early video shows so boring and impossible to sit through. Life without editing, it seems, is just not that interesting.
and what about the looping/moving image or gifs? this is a strange in-between of the image and the video. essentially existing in an infinite repetition, what does this mean for the lifespan of this form? what does it mean when you stop viewing it, if it still loops without you viewing it (and in extension of that, all of the digital, how does it function when you are not looking - similar to the thinking around inanimate objects) and what about the looping image that has a seamless flow, where you cannot tell when it starts or ends? is it truly repeating itself? in contrast, we live our lives with the impossibility of repetition of experiences. with documentation, at the very least the footage you see will always repeat itself for you (but of course your experience of it will be monumentally different considering the context in which you view it). the argument of the repetition of habits or routine is also considerable. all of this falls under the mundane which is why it is so fascinating. and also why the thinking around 'the everyday' is too. (I've always felt the presence of this strange 'everyday'ness pressing down on me, some orchestration of objects or sights I see scream the everyday... it is still a phenomenon I don't quite understand, even after some investigation on this area in first year? I think in that essay) the word itself, the everyday is intriguing because it insinuates the repetition of a 'day', a growing collection of days, whilst being empty as being one single day or an umbrella term to generalise the living experience.. I think of what bill viola wrote in his writings again, how we only have the impression that our life is in discrete parts because of memory and sleep, feeling like a broken thread when in reality it is unbroken and continuous.
p.98 Possibly the most startling thing about our individual existence is that it is continuous. It is an unbroken thread - we have been living this same moment ever since we were conceived. It is memory, and to some extent sleep, that gives us the impression of a life of discrete parts, periods, or sections, of certain times or "highlights." Hollywood movies and the media, of course, reinforce this perception.
I also found this from my archive of quotes (documentation?) which speaks to what I was talking about above on the digital image (all from the book: Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House)
p.221 Images Tell Lies: Perception is the way we contact the world, it is the language of being yet the senses have traditionally been considered the source of illusion.
..Artificial images do not portray reality accurately. They aspire to the image and not to the object, to visual perception and not to the experiential mind field…. Of course, the reason why artificial images succeed us that they rely heavily on the viewer’s prior knowledge that, for example, objects do have all their sides. They involve the viewers knowledge bas in their functioning. Human beings, therefore, have always been an integral part of any technology of images. Perception is the input channel to the mind, and with new technologies, the call is first to the body, then the mind will follow.
P.224 The Future of Technology is the Future of What is Real
With each new step in the evolution of technology, we take a step closer to our ideal of higher and higher quality, which actually means creating things that look more and more like nature itself…
…How close can we come to the true nature of things?
…in the end is the ultimate transparent state where there is no perceived difference between the simulation and reality, between ourselves and the other.
…As human beings we require limits and boundaries to function…
…Technology does constantly provoke us to ask what is real…
..When asked what is real, most people turn inwards, to their individual experience..they do not necessarily think of themselves standing there at the moment the question is asked. At that moment, of course, all these things are memories, mental images. Memory is the residing place of life experience, the collection that reveals and/or fabricates order and meaning. What is real, therefore, is what is psychologically meaningful. At one time in the past, the mythic and symbolic were real. Today, physical science has influences us to believe that the objects of the physical world are real. Yet, we surround ourselves with electronic images and transmitted information. Hollis Frampton called the movement in moving images “the movement of human consciousness itself. The images carry on our mental lives for us” he said, “darkly, whether we want them or not,” We already are, and always have been, in an imaginary landscape of perception.
*thoughts developed on the visual proposal from this post continued in another*
some other random points I'll drop down here (perhaps a growing list) to do with this line of thought...
-often find myself screenshotting / screen recording things I do online or especilaly interactions with people, I only consoiculsy realised this isn't a regular habit for most people..and the desire to have these saved in the highest quality is immense, i now use google photos for ease of automatic uploading and infinite storage, but the deal of not highest or original quality irks me. a little but I remind mseylf that I don't need the highest quality
-transcript- the errors... the repeated looping of segments trying to form words from these weird irregulars of human voices...it would be easier if this was all machine, and in some cases the machine works so much better, for best efficiency, but is that what our world should come to? again this speaks to a broad range of material like in sci fi , super computer of emotion - robot
-the 50 - 60 emails I have for drive, and the act of going into folders like 'invisible doors' (dorothea), and wallowing in memory lane as if it is a linear path when it is. aall rounded experience full of senses that might not have existed in the fist place
-desire to capture all angles of everything (=fear of losing experience, living?) (like screenshots
-memory lane
-keep forever, memory inevitably manipulated but digital forever same, but the way we view it makes it different , music feels different ..
-background noise, pixels , subject, why how document, presumption or expectation when filming
-'live in the moment' - ig posts i did about this
-something about japan photos (short lived, also wanting to go back and gone back for holiday)
-there is always a need for documentation it is never bad... (arguable ) someone always needs it
-relive the past not live in past enjoying the past in the present which in turn richens the future (future nostalgia)
-that is why the digital is so intertwined with this , my practice
-thinking upon taxidermy, (which seems so far from the digital but) (the glass like the screen, the form of documentation, the desire to retain as much information as possible ) that is a whole other level of documentation, the skin, retains, the research behind, archival practice and collection not unlike this blog
-documentation of nature which is so temporary and always in distraught , (poet oudoulf designing garden that lasts all year)
the concept of data - lilah fowler, data dirt...
-that is why video games so intriguing - video: the case for video games. gameplay with plot. gameplay that is 2D or click (Fran bow) gameplay that is distressing or on other end, completely relaxing - the addiction in gaming. immersion - like nature.
-the overlays or connectedness to nature.which seem like completely opposites in surface but really.
in show want 'human, nature, dream' - and maybe the digital is more subtle - but it is there in the digital drawing (pandemic and isolation) and also the monolith in collage and collages and even paintings I made , the process.
human, nature, dream, the digital/technology - human life...? ways in which these tie in with each other. (reword artist statement?)
(in this quarantine brought along interest in outer space - and human understanding and existenrial and interpretations of it i culture like films and video games and even music like the scores which can teach us so much about ourselves its always about ourselves...
whenever i feel sleepy i look on my phone and suddenly I'm weirdly recharged like i could be online forever (I did an old post about this on tumblr for the 'aesthetics'... maybe i can look back on those and use that material...) (show context like arcangel)
does documentation = desire to make a mark in the world or just an intimate personal thing. personal memories, if used as a material, does it mean anything to others?
tourist packages or holidays are a valuable source of investigation because it ties in all these things, by the possibility of travel and reaching new parts of the world, new memories, new nature, new images captures by technology, new material for your subconscious to use in dream collages
and there are endless ways to represent each thing(like text photograph video screen recording sculpture performance sound - and then the infinite combinations of processes) and how zoomed in of each thing is (which detail picked out how broad how you view one thing and interpret into another, (like three chairs) and that is why I constantly find it hard to navigate what to do, my head will explode, but very exciting