// back to studios April 2021
14.4.21
so it’s been a week or so after flying back to London and getting back to the studios. and it’s great the studios can be accessed again, and I’m excited to make work, I ordered a large whiteboard to work on (which I’m still tracking down, it didn’t get delivered when it said it would) but I’m getting an unsettling feeling that I’m not really doing anything. With the panic and agony of trying to string together artists and works and come up with a specific question for the thousand word hand in, I think I’m sort of confused where I stand now as I haven’t really produced work in the past few months. yes I’ve done one video and one stop motion video but, should I do more? should I do the whiteboard stuff ? and I know I should just do it. it’ll come as I put possibilities or starting points into action. At the same time, especially digging around on articles plus for the hand in, I realised I’m really interested in conceptual works (I’ve always known, but more so now maybe) especially (and I don’t really know how to word this, so this was particularly challenging for writing the proposal)
21.4.21
right in the midst of coming back to the studios and getting my big whiteboard. I've only had maybe one good half-day of studio time so far.. I don't know what it is, I feel like I am stuck in non-moving. I feel quite scattered again, like there are little tugs of interest in multiple directions (white board sketches, video arrangements, collages on whiteboard, writing) but none of them pulling me particularly strongly, like I don't have one subject matter that is magnetic enough for me to stay in one place and really dig into it. I suppose I've often worked that way, get obsessed with one thing, dig into it, and then leave it easily as if I don't remember it all. perhaps it is because of this exactly, having the documentation and being able to easily detach myself from it, like a sense of, yes I've already looked into that, that is bad. and to look at this itself at the beginning of my investigation, it's like I'm looking at nothing, it is so transient.
22.4.21
I am seriously falling into another low when I need to get back into it the most. it is so weird, the resources are all there, why am I not able to use them? it is like all my senses are dulled, and i know it is my problem. I am trying to not listen to the voice that's calling me dumb stupid lazy selfish and a waste of money space and resources. it is so stupid when you identify the voice. but you can't deny there's some, maybe a lot of truth in it. I am not in a good headspace and i need to get out of it, but the already hard climb is toppled with the anxiety of time running out and the guilt of not doing much when everything is so accessible, so ready for me to dig into. this is so stupid it doesn't even make sense. i just feel like I'm trying to climb out of an invisible cliff face that's made of weighted cotton, looking like it is holding a shape but tumbling down when it doesn't hold. but it is comfortable and soft down here. why should i even try to climb, I don't even know if there's anything good up there. I can still taste the blood in my mouth.
last night I had the angriest dream I've had in a while. somebody had swapped my phone out and when I found it, they had erased my history, my contacts became question marks, just.. it wasn't mine anymore. I have never felt such rage, at the candid attitude the other had like it's no big deal. in the dream, at least, the history I had in my phone was my lifeline. it was like they had destroyed a major part of me. the audacity of that, I couldn't contain my rage. I even swore, and I never do. I proceeded to beat them up, knee them where it hurts, slam their skull against the concrete floor, and their friend too, who I thought I could trust. I said, what kind of friend are you if you can't even see how wrong this is? and I punched them hard from above, we were sitting in an atrium as our papers were being handed out. all this was after meeting up at the end of the day at an amusement park. I detailed some context in my dream notes. the point is, I woke up after being fuelled with rage, and I wanted to doze off to sleep again, and I did. and thus I felt the guilt afterwards.
a thought. can I only create when I feel an compulsive, insane, obsessive drive towards something? especially when there is a deadline (which could be forever if I am to survive as a fine artist) this is not good. is it because I am lazy? afraid of the infinite possibilities? this is pathetic. I don't know how people are doing it. our creative energies all work differently so there is no point to comparison. everyone in my life is telling me to just keep going, keep making, which I know is the only way forward. but somehow, a simple thing like that, can be so hard sometimes. which is ridiculous considering the privileges I have. which is why this is pathetic.
like, I would be happy to keep doing the same collage-trace-and-paint method I employed in my BA, and that sounds really great actually, but I know I want to do more and that there are so many resources here in my MA to really push myself from the comfort zone. like, when I was moving houses at the end of the course last year and I felt a profound moment when I wrapped tape almost autonomously, strangely around the cardboard for my mirror. I felt I was making a great assemblage and I felt a weird power surge through me like I was meant to do something like this for a long time. I haven't done it since, because there is something seriously wrong with me, I don't know if it's laziness or fear or lack of confidence or direction or all, but I would have ideas but not execute them. and that is why I would fail as an artist, and not be able to reach my fullest potential. I know it clearly. so what now. I can only tackle it. with rage, with obsession, with the compulsiveness that is almost incomprehensible, nonsensical. if I think too much, I'll just halt in the path. but at the same time, if I am not in my head, I am not able to create real work. some people can keep making and making, but I am unable to make without needing to think. I am going to drive myself crazy, and for what? without even an outcome. now that is pathetic, the voice is saying.
I think I am feeling particularly in the air right now because I am starting off without a concrete subject or idea, and trying to make before reaching a point of interest and specificity. exactly like what is happening with my dissertation. and that is why I am so lost. compared to my BA, where I had such certainty of what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to explore it, I am entering a completely new space where I am not even painting at all, but embracing this conceptual side of things perhaps, and that is completely foreign. but it feels right. it felt right when I bought the whiteboard, it felt right when I teared open the plastic cover, recorded that process where the first thing I did was write 'THE VULNERABILITY OF THE FIRST ACT' because that was what it was. I am simply stating what is happening then. this reminds me of what I found when looking around for my RP, where douglas huebler said "The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more."....
5:15pm ok so I just attended a 3d lab session talk and had some thoughts and feel much better about everything. i do have it in me I just needed to do something small to trigger it all. that's why this is all so ridiculous. cos when you're in the depths you act so dramatic, when actually all ittakes is a little pull and you're out. (though of course its equally as easy to fall back in) it;s like, when I'm in it, I'm In it and when I'm not, I cant do it at all. I'm gonna take advantage of every good zone I find myself in and keep at it.
23.4.21 briefly reading back some of the dream entries in the last few days (it comes in bursts - perhaps I remember them more when I am more aware of them, perhaps I have dreams every night but only sometimes I remember them enough to write them down.. or I just have dreamless nights from time to time) and the experience is quite surreal like you know you experienced these bizarre things because they read familiar, but you don't remember writing them down. it's like retrieving something that you know was once yours, but you don't recognise them right now, like a new set of teeth, or something.
I think my productivity has different categories, like the more social energy that is limited and hard to rein in once it starts (like yesterday at like 2am and I was so awake), is good for stuff like post-grad community ideas, and the other which is a more quiet, delusional, compulsive, private drive in my practice.. it is challenging to bring that energy out in conjunction/from one to the other as they almost seem like opposites. when Im in the first mood I cannot get to my own practice at all, I'm all over the place and I laugh and find it hard to center myself, in the latter I cannot interact with others. so this is challenging to have in the studios. of course, I want to be the first because I am interacting with people but that also means I find it hard to focus on my work. the solution probably seems simple. just let people know you're working etc. but that shuts off the benefits of sharing a studio. it is probably not as hard lined as that and I'm probably getting stuck in my own head again but this is how it is right now. maybe it's because I just want to have fun with the people who are around me right now. maybe it's because I don't feel particularly pulled by my practice currently. I think as I dig deeper into my rp it'll get better... I really hope so. I got my two potentially helpful library books, I really hope they are helpful. I have my tutorial with marc next week, I need to have some sort of direction..
also, there were some things said at the 3d lab session yesterday that struck with me, the thing she said about fiddling all day (whatever form that takes) and sometimes getting nowhere, but needing that process anyway because you wouldn't have gotten here if you hadn't fiddled all day. I think the best thing I can do in my process right now is really embrace every thought - be extremely honest with what I am doing and feeling and simply stating it - being transparent, erasable, everything is so transient and temporary like a whiteboard - like you want to express and convey something, but perhaps you also want to hide or erase yourself as soon as you say it, or that time and decay is inevitable for any thought. I am interested in fake or pseudo-authority, like in a scientific looking diagram, or categories, or archives. I am also interested in one thing being done in another process to look like it e.g. printing on normal printing paper a whiteboard drawing. like it is trying to be that thing it is at one point.
28.4.21 had my tutorial this morning with marc and I showed him the beginnings of the whiteboard process, from the video to the first 'attempt' at a drawing. he pointed out something important which I agreed with - that there is a danger that I'm treating the whiteboard like a painting (which I wanted to when I first purchased it - sort of ironic thing where Im spending a lot of time on something that is going to be erased (after how long?)) and LOSING the concept of the whiteboard, and that's a terrifying thought - losing the medium as I'm working on it. but I see now after yesterday trying to desperately fill the whiteboard - it felt almost fake and I'm just filling it for the sake of it .. marc was right, I was approaching it wrong. i think it should be used as a whiteboard (the visual language) eg doodles, text.. and perhaps more video of the process. he also said it's like I am dealing with the 'blank canvas' concept, and the overwhelmingness of it. it is strange because as the text came to me I was on top of the world, in the element, and now I want to wipe it all off, burn it. marc also suggested for me to do more smaller ones too (multiple?). I'm still not sure how to document each drawing. perhaps I can create an archive.. / I showed some of Douglas huebler's work - esp with the photography and text which I'm very interested in terms of display. marc said this was seen a lot in conceptual art - which is what I'm looking at a lot for my research paper. maybe the erasing could be the work ..