Unsurprisingly I am feeling extremely scattered and distanced from my [ practice ] especially now that I've been back home in taiwan since December 12 (nearly a month). of course, I've been feeling quite 'unproductive' when I was still in London, just because I wasn't coming out with 'outputs', as marc phrased it. but I need to keep reminding myself that every experimentation no matter how small will count towards Something, if just a path I wont go down. even though I've been here for just a few weeks, twenty something days, it felt very long (perhaps also because of quarantine?) and work i needed to catch up on have just been left in the background. but! I am going to get back on track now that uni is starting again (very uncertain times, with an even worse pandemic situation in the uk, the way taiwan has been broadcasting it here is terrifying as well, and more extreme measures have been implemented for those who arrived from there now, I was very lucky to come back just before then) it is just crazy that originally I was only going to stay in tw for 3 ish weeks (with two in quarantine) and now its going to be at least three months.
I really hope I am able to work through my ideas without access to the workshops / London studio. I might do more digital stuff. but there's something that feels very abstract and not tangible and not real about digital experimentations. almost like every time I turn off the ipad or laptop, it ceases to exist and therefore I forget about it and therefore i do not progress/carry that step onwards towards the next development, if that makes sense. I need to constantly remind myself what as been done, that is why this blog is so important to not only my mindset but also the progression of my work. and so I am trying to save myself by catching up right now. perhaps the lectures that I missed updating on would be near impossible, but I am going to try much harder at updating this term.
the timestamps on this blog, I realised, is really vital to how I work. perhaps its because time feels so abstract to me that I need something concrete in documentation to prove to me that something happened on this day or that. it also forces me to think actual thoughts like these because for the past month I've just been panicking. I wish I could stop stressing unnecessarily, and I know it is all a result of my disorganization and susceptibility to push things to the next week, then the next. I am going in clichéd circles again, we always return to this mindset on this blog. its a pattern. its a circle. (vicious). I am thinking of the venn diagram again. circle of life.. I keep thinking of circles, loops, in diagrams, in jewelry (chain), in repetition and overlaps, in how information is expressed clearly yet blanks on some other more subtle ideas. like needing to read between the lines. reading between the circles, arrows, shading. I keep seeing relevant visuals in my time here...
but what do I do now - I feel my mind is an infinite venn diagram with infinite overlaps and rejected spaces (map?) I think once I catch up on the past few posts I can get a clearer timeline on how I got here. Its as if I need to recollect history with [ recall ] so I know who I am now. (again thinking back on that idea of - who am I without my memories // 'memories make me') this blog in itself is a desperate site for recollection of memories. I cannot abandon it, it would equal abandoning my practice. that's what it feels like. without it I am floating without an anchor. it was good to have a physical studio as a real anchor like marc said, where I can put things up and see things physically.
---SO I am thinking overall about documentation and keeping records (especially in amateur photo/video + written/analogue/notes/diary/inform, instruction, teaching)
(I guess there is a need to distinguish between the audience of - a record, documentation for oneself (me)? or the textbook (this is more thinking about the diagram and liking the visuals and playfulness of how limiting it looks) (but does this count as documentation?)
I have been: taking those almost sneak videos, uncut (raw), more like an audio with strange angled video. an unavoidable awkwardness. the low quality flash images from digital camera (old-new technology)
new..
quote from la jetee 'memory of a twice-lived moment in time somewhere inside'