30/03/2012

Being in the water.
Escaping the land entirely; complicated and conflicting. Alien space, place of fear and uncertainty and excitement, and new-ness. Ever changing. Refreshing. Enfolding.
A place that's impossible to inhabit, where you definitely do not belong and can't try to.
A reason to laugh.

Splishy splashy fun

A pact to get out into the fresh air, say hello to the water and swim in the sea off Plymouth at every opportunity.

Studio update 28/03/2012

Finding place and the present and a future and peace in the here and now.
Planning for the big adventure to the Gower, and being excited, and searching for things, and looking forward. Escape, away. Make art. Stay alive. Find place.

26/03/2012

I think that I am very controlling over the information I give out about myself.

I manipulate how I am willing to be perceived. This varies from person to person, relationship to relationship. There are some things that no one knows. And there are some people that know nothing. Everybody thinks that they know more than they do, but some people still know too much; I have given away too much of myself.

This project is difficult because I am giving away elements of myself that would normally be kept very much private. Compiling these elements and information into graphs and statistics however makes this fact of sharing easier, because I am presenting myself in a professional and ‘pseudo-scientific’ manner, which allows me to disassociate from the information that I have collected. If I turn my emotions, and my behaviours and rituals which I find shameful into something clinical and separate from myself, then it’s less difficult to share, not only because it feels less a part of me, but because it will be received in a different way; in theory, less to do with other people’s emotions, and more to do with their scientific minds.

Parallels can then be drawn between this ‘study’, and between my actions in ‘real life’, once again behaving in a way that is controlling and manipulative. As such, the information that I compile and present can only be assumed to be incomplete, because it is made through a process of selection, and according to criteria designed by myself with the full knowledge in mind that this information will be seen by others.

However, this set of criteria has not been selected consciously in order to impress or control; my principal motivation in this study is to understand better my actions, and recognise patterns and areas in need of improvement –in order to run at ‘maximum efficiency’.

This taxonomy falls in place to capture my inefficiencies and failings, and replace them with behaviours that I can confirm to be advantageous. This has been approached by tracking my mood and productivity (the two elements of my life that I believe to be most important for ‘maximum efficiency’), and then within that, repetitive behaviours. It is then possible to examine the effects of these behaviours by comparing them to the mathematical averages for both mood and productivity, and discern whether they are beneficial or otherwise. 

Another element to, and another purpose for this study is to track my withdrawal, and the behavioural and physical effects of suddenly ceasing to take prescribed medication. I began this project on my first day without said medication as a way to ‘keep track’ of my behaviours, and any ill effects of ‘going cold turkey’. This seemed important for my health, and as another way of taking command of my life and actions; taking back this element of control which until then had been with medical professionals. In a way, this has been about reclaiming power and banishing what I perceive to be weakness, so this need to improve my ability to work and live comfortably has, in part, been about fighting back and seizing control.

As well as this, I am also eager to know and have confirmed for myself that by doing the wrong thing, I did the right thing. This confirmation comes in watching the rhythms of my behaviour (particularly mood), after the initial withdrawal, levelling, or at least becoming more consistent, and the patterns of my mood and productivity beginning to associate and flow in harmony, which is both pleasing and reassuring.

GCOP - A whole lot of numbers

Average over 27 days:

Mood = 4 (0.15)
Productivity = 67 (2.5)

9x           Porridge – Mood = 9 (1)
                Porridge – Productivity = 28 (3.1)

19x         Wheat – Mood = -3 (-0.15)
                Wheat – Productivity = 43 (2.3)

13x         Lack of routine – Mood = -1 (0.1)
                Lack of routine – productivity = 26 (2)

15x         Headaches – Mood = 0 (0)
                Headaches – Productivity = 40 (2.6)

11x         High sugar – Mood = 9 (0.8)
                High sugar – Productivity = 21 (1.9)

7x           Running – Mood = 3 (0.4)
                Running – Productivity = 14 (2)

3x           Alcohol – Mood = 5 (1.6)
                Alcohol – Productivity = 7 (2.3)

Mood -              0.15

Porridge               1
Wheat                  -0.15
Lack of routine     0.1
Headache             0
High Sugar           0.8
Running               0.4
Alcohol                1.6

Productivity -    2.5

Porridge               3.1
Wheat                  2.3
Lack of routine     2
Headache             2.6
High sugar            1.9
Running               2
Alcohol                2.3

20/03/2012

Skipping between past and present. All the time. But can’t stay in one place. Present isn’t real, past isn’t real. I need to understand this. It’s a message to myself.

What is my question? What am I searching for? 

I’ve acknowledged what is. And I know now that it’s not something to be resolved, it just is.

I need to be strict with myself.

Weepy, pathetic girl.
Hanging onto the past.
There’s no strength or fight here, just nostalgia + melancholy.
It’s disgusting. I’m disgusted to have such weakness in me. I need to clear up + find strength. Figure out what I can do, actually do. Not ‘talk about’, but do.

I hate this place. I am disorientated + confused by the world I live in. It makes me nauseous. I am isolated by this + by other things. Isolated in a place that I find strange. This is why I drift off and gall into the past and the imaginary. But it does ‘t help.

Things that aren’t real.

This book – Capture it – Cauterize it. Crystallise.
Throw it away. Dismiss. A goodbye.
It’s all stories. Memories. It isn’t real.

I only just realised that things have changed.

Being in England. I said it, not as ‘being in England as opposed to being anywhere else’. I said it as ‘Being in England’; The experience of being here. Just being.

You can try and understand the present, and (maybe) see a future, but you can’t go back.

Hand Held: Portable, Compact Translation

17/03/2012

Georges Perec; Notes Concerning the Objects that are on my Work-table.

“I tidy my work-table quite frequently. This consists of putting all the objects somewhere else and replacing them one by one I wipe the glass table with a duster (sometimes soaked in a special product) and do the same with each object. The problem is then to decide whether a particular object should or should not be on the table (next a place has to be found for it, but usually that isn’t difficult).
 
This rearrangement of my territory rarely takes place at random. It most often corresponds to the beginning or end of a specific piece of work; it intervenes in the middle of those indecisive days when I don’t quite know whether I’m going to get started and when I simply cling on to these activities of withdrawal: tidying, sorting, setting in order. At these moments I dream of a work surface that is virgo intacta: everything in its place, nothing superfluous, nothing sticks out, all the pencils well sharpened (but why have several pencils? I can see six merely at a glance!), all the paper in a pile or, better still, no paper at all, only an exercise book open at a blank page."

Sorting and reordering my actions. ‘clinging to the activities of withdrawal: tidying, sorting, setting in order’. Mindless organisation? Smoothing out wrinkles; shaving off anything superfluous of disruptive. My life is my messy work-surface.

Perec, G (2008) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin Classics

16/03/2012

Finished page for submission w/ accompanying micro-statement.

15/03/2012

Undoubtedly the image on the left is sharper, clearer. But lacking something, maybe. I'm so confused, there are a lot of things to be taken into consideration. It doesn't even really matter; I think I would be as happy to submit one as I would any of the others. But I feel better when it's been tinkered with, and I've used my hands, and spent time and worked. Even if the result is imperfect. Note: I think that last sentence just made the decision for me.

Studio update 13/03/2012

Printing in the studio all day today. Now is the time where I'm just fiddling about,a nd deciding. Aesthetics; which one says the right thing, says it best; appropriateness for a publication. It's all quite fluffy.

GCOP tutorial 15/03/2012

Tutorial w/Jason 15/03/2012

Jess: I have been working on my artefact, which is this book, and I have a pocket one that I carry with me, which is tracking certain things.

Jason: I’m going to mention this in a bit (small pieces of writing/graphs?) because I have an idea about your project that you might want to look at.

Jess: I’ve started writing and making notes about what it is that I want to talk about, which is like… The effect of… No, not the effect… Making criteria and selection within such a broad realm of… What is the everyday. If it  stops it from being the everyday; if it stops it from even being valid.  Because it’s not like a…

Jason: I think it’s very valid, because what you’re… I found some graphs- and I’m really glad you’re doing those- I found some graphs in a book… I’ve got it at home, and I’ll bring it in for you, but it’s called ‘People and Place’, it’s by a guy called Phil Hubbard; It’s talking about people who graph the everyday. So literally like, they compare two people- one who drives to work and one who walks to work. Really boring information. But it’s the way it’s presented; and you realise actually, that everybody’s everyday is completely amazing if you graph it, if you start thinking about what we do. And you’re starting to do that.

Jess: So like. What this artefact…  This book; It’s kind of like a key for a map that doesn’t exist, you know? Didge and I were going through it… It’s obviously got all this stuff, and then the graphs, and they all refer to each other, and you can look back and go ‘oh right, well Jam is bad because I had a bad day when I ate jam.’ Things like that.

Jason: Right, so you’re making those completely unconnected, but logical connections.

Jess: Right, because they might as well be.

Jason: Absolutely. This is fabulous. Okay, so how long are you going to do this for?

Jess: Well, I’m going to sort of do it for the duration of this project… because I was doing it anyway. So yeah, until…

Jason: Did you look at the Tehching Hsieh book?

Jess: No, I haven’t had a chance to, I’m still maxed out on my library card…

Jason: I think just simply looking at the way that he mapped his everyday… These one year periods. Did I tell you about what he did? Just for thinking about the way that he mapped everything that he did- like you’re doing- on actual maps. So he would write ‘ate noodles here’,  and the stuff that you don’t want to know, he mapped too. So it’s all kind of on there. So for five or six years that he did these one-year projects, every hour or moment of his life is mapped. And you’re doing that; you’re mapping quite… we would say, if we weren’t artists, and we weren’t looking at this theoretically, we would say ‘why are you mapping what you had for lunch?’ But actually, why not? Why is hat…? Do you remember when we looked at Georges Perec, and he said ‘we only think of a plane when it crashes’, a plane only becomes obvious when it crashes… Well lunch only becomes obvious when you sit down and write it down. You forget everything. I think this is a fabulous project, and I think what you’re doing, and the way that you’re doing that is theoretical in itself. It’s a kind of praxis. So it’s about practice and theory, all attached into one. So I would say, more than anything… look at the Tehching Hsieh; you’re looking at Ben Highmore, aren’t you?

Jess: Yeah, I’m reading that everyday reader at the moment, and also his essay was in The Everyday…

Jason: Well I’ll find the Phil Hubbard book, and I’ll bring… I’ve orders a couple of extra Everyday books to come in, so as soon as they come in… I’ve ordered a couple that are going to be published this month; There’s one by a girl called Sarah Pink, and she has a feminist kind of approach to it, so that might be really interesting for you to read. But I don’t know if it’ll be in time. She’s a great writer.
This is lovely, I’m loving this. So you’re kind of keeping this really… The quotidian… So everything is coming in, and then you start… So as someone seeing this, I can say ‘nausea and dizziness… is that related to porridge?’

Jess: Well that’s it! Is it porridge? Because it might be.  Think that maybe I eat too much porridge, and it’s fuelling my headaches. I have quite a lot of headaches and eat quite a lot of porridge; I devote most of my time to either having a headache, or eating porridge.

Jason: So what this could become… you know when doctors sometimes put people on a diary diet. They say, I want you to record what you eat for a week, and then they try to work out what’s causing your migraines. How do you feel it’s going in terms of research?

Jess: good… Well, yeah, it’ll be better once I’ve got a bit more time to do some reading. But I’ve got a lot of books out, and I’m reading them when I can. I’m really interested in like, when they talk about archiving, ephemera, documentation…

Jason: I’m loving this, these little touches. I don’t think you want to read too much more. I think the reading comes out of what you’re doing. So the work is being made by you doing this, and it’s then that which should inform the next bit which you should do. So I would say more than anything, continue doing it. 

GCOP 14/02/2012

I am interested in exploring the significance of ‘tracking’, or documenting the Everyday; what it means to be selective within the Everyday; criteria for selection. Developing a useful and comprehensive system by which I can track and link mood and productivity- productivity being what I consider the most important element to my life and my driving force.

I am curious about whether or not it is in fact possible to document and archive the Everyday, using my own ‘Everyday’ life as a frame for this; creating my own idiosyncratic map of my life which will serve as a model by which to judge my behaviour. Guideline, key, rules. Creating rules.

There will be a piece of writing accompanying an artefact. The artefact serves as this set of rules, this template by which I can judge my actions and the significance of certain behaviours/patterns. The piece of writing to accompany this will be an exploration of the efficiency of this, how my study fits into Everyday Life Theory. Whether by being so selective and choosing only to document a small number of occurrences within my Everyday,  if I am taking away the ‘Everyday-ness’ of my life, and whether this artefact is in fact valid as a genuine representation of life. Can any archive constructed using some form of taxonomy ever be genuine?

Annette Messager created books/albums as a way of controlling a persona, maintaining an element of her life (however imagined). In my own way I am doing this with my artefact. Controlling, ‘keeping track of’, setting guidelines by which this person should live; Eat less jam, Lunch at 12, vacuum more often, fit into the scale... Chart your existence.

Sophie Calle in her work, specifically The Hotel, being very particular about the information she did and didn’t want to take in; Uninterested in actual inhabitants of rooms, only in their belongings and making assumptions of them based on the ‘evidence’ she finds. Not interested in having her assumptions confirmed, only in making them... Exploring the Everyday-est elements of the people whose rooms she cleaned, the traces they left behind. 

1.    Why am I doing this?
2.    Is it working?

14/03/2012

13/03/2012

I think usually in my art I would work and work, and in the end I’d be able to say ‘Here. This is it. It is what it is. You don’t know what it is. And I can’t tell you what it is. But you can have it anyway, and make what you will of it.’

But kind of... stripping away in this manner... I’m showing something that hasn’t been through all of these rolling, tumultuous, complicated, upsetting, nauseating processes... Taking away my hunt and my frustration, and instead just saying ‘Here, I think this is all it really ever was; I guess it’s not that clever after all.’
Which is scarier than it sounds.

(Of course it's not always as simple as that... But it's nice to pretend that it is.)

 

A Publication - Proposal

Sent and awaiting feedback.

Jess Young – Proposal Call 2; A Publication

Currently in my studio practice I have begun work in creating my own book - or a collection of pages - of titled illustrative drawings, each one describing a thought or theme that contributes to the wider motifs of my art practice. This book will exist as a sourcebook, or a list of ingredients - each one existing separately as I search for a way to bring them all together in my art; this project, in a way, dissecting and crystallising elements of my practice and areas of exploration that I have not allowed myself to acknowledge individually.

Proposal

What I propose to include in the publication for call 2 is a collaged image of a number of these drawings, possibly integrating appropriate text. I felt that submitting a single illustration would be inappropriate- in separating a single image from the others, I would alter the intention of the project- but in creating this collage for the publication, I feel I am able to share an element of my practice, retaining a level of vagueness, but in a satisfactorily descriptive manner.
The collage will be made with a combination of manually drawing and printing and Photoshop.

11/03/2012 (2)

As it is, it's a complicated idea. Presenting just one element of yourself to an audience that has no idea what you're talking about. You have to be very selective, very concise. Even if, like me, you are perfectly happy to be somewhat cagey and vague... You still have to be selective in your vagueness. By showing a single, technically imperfect, drawing, what am I saying about my practice? It doesn't describe my practice. But then that's not what I intend to do, if it were I could take photos. No, that's not it at all. It shows a single dimension. a thin slice. A vagueness that goes beyond intriguing and into the nondescript... possibly.

This alternative of creating something, making something. Collaging, collaging ideas. Which is what I do... But presenting it in a way that is unusual to me... Graphicky, illustrative... But still vague, yes.
I think this is more appropriate, considering both the issue of having a single page to say something important... and the format this work will be presented in. a bok to be bought and shared. I don't feel it would describe my practice in the light that I'd want it to if I didn't offer something visual and attractive.. Because that is important to me.

I'm making a book that will consist entirely of these drawings... so presenting just one, a single one, amongst works of lots of other artists. It wouldn't behave in the same way as it would, tucked up amongst its friends. It wouldn't do what I want it to.

11/02/2012

I know that this contradicts what I've just said... something sitting individually. But it does something different as well. It's the same and different. Still tells the story in systematic, diagramatical, analytical way. And considering aesthetics. A book of visuals. This is more appropriate... this kind of thing. I think aesthetics are important. More so in some setting than others.

Call 2: A Publication - First thoughts

Proposal due in three days, finished piece due in 10. Something simple. Something that comes easily and makes sense. Part of my practice. Natural.
I also don't  have the studio to use at the moment because of first year assessments. Bedroom art. t

Currently in my studio practice I am creating a book - or a collection of pages - of titled illustrative drawings, each one describing a thought or theme that contributes to the wider motifs of my art practice. This book will exist as a sourcebook, or a list of ingredients - each one existing seperately as I search for a way to bring them all together in my art. At this point, I feel that this project is in a way dissecting and crystalising elements of my practice and areas of explaration that I have not allowed myself to acknowledge individually.

Reproducing one of these illustrations as a single page in a book of other artists' works allows me to share a single, isolated element of my practice; examine it as it stands alone.

This is very different to the majority of my practice; this book provides a platform to 'test the ground', and see how I can actualise these thoughts. 

Jess Young; Practical Woman

"This outward wisdom conceals true madness: 'Annette Messager Practical Woman seems more serious, notes down everything that is important in her life, but in the end... she is perhaps the least reasonable because she doesn't make things, but contents herself with copying notes she knows she will never use. This losing herself in practical details is her way of fleeing life.'"

-Messager, A (2006) Word for Word. London: Violette Ltd.

Am I involving myself in my life more thoroughly by capturing it like this... or am I escaping life, distracting myself...?
Am I Jess Young Practical Woman?

More GCOP thoughts

It’s important because it has such a complete impact on my practice. The entire nature of my practice.

Annette Messager – Images of the Everyday
Hamish Fulton – Mapping

As time goes on, I will begin to learn more what is and isn’t relevant.
Clues,
Evidence.
It is natural that the process + criteria for selection should mutate over the course of this project.
What is it now?

I need to:
Understand current criteria.
What it means for the criteria to change + grow.
The significance of archiving the everyday – and – the significance of being selective with the everyday.
My own practice. How this impact my art practice. My actions + decisions.
What ‘map of self’ means in this context.
What is my question??
                        -Well, I’m interested in how this kind of process influences my practice. But I’m not just interested in that.
The significance/possibility of archiving and making selections within the realm to the everyday, and the influence of this process of selection upon art practice.
Mapping. Forms of documentation/presentation. Appropriateness of these forms.

Criteria of what this is not.
What am I not interested in documenting/talking about?
What isn’t relevant – and why isn’t it?

-I am not interested in my interactions with other people.
-I am not interested in what’s in the news at the moment.
-I am not interested in my bank balance.
                        External things (What is the qualification for ‘external’?)
-I am not interested in the weather. (I thought I was, but I’m not)

The content of the artefact is kind of irrelevant. Or, it’s relevant to my life, and to my practice... But in terms of Time, Space + the Everyday, what’s really, really important is my interpretation of the artefact. The way that I evaluate it + decide its worth. The way that I place it, contextually, and the impact that this pattern of thinking has on my practice.

(Johnstone, S (2008) The Everyday. London: Whitechapel) Page 85

“Archives:
The second cluster of questions concerns the (related) problem of the archive. At one level this might be thought of as a simple practical question: what could an archive of everyday life include? What could it possibly exclude? For instance, if an archive of the everyday were to include a potentially infinite number of items, then how could it be organized? The question of what to include in an everyday life archive raises questions about the appropriate form for collating ‘everyday life’ material...
So even at the level of collecting and organizing date, more fundamental problems intrude, namely the problem of making the everyday meaningful in a way that doesn’t imprison it at the level of the particular, or doesn’t eradicate the particularity of the particular by taking off into abstract generalities.”

When does the process of selection/documentation/representation take over from the content of the archive (Do I even care about the content of the archive??), and does it matter if it does?
Questions within my own practice also.
SELECTION – CONTENT.

GCOP200 - First thoughts

Trying to detect a deviation iin the pattern. Rigid routine rules that must be followed help to identify these deviations.

Archiving the everyday
Rules
Routine
Organisation

CRITERIA?
What is my criteria of documentation? What resonates in the most satisfying way?

Removing distractions, excuses -> Control. Controlling pleasure + deviation.

(Perhaps porridge is fuelling my inefficiencies)

I've always been this way. but now it's out of fear. A need to control - not for pleasure. For fear of losing control.

"At this level of argument the everyday represents an impossibly evasive terrain: to attend to it is to lose it, or as Blanchet writes: 'We cannot help but miss it if we seek it through knowledge, for it belongs to a region where there is still nothing to know.' But this should not be taken to suggest that the Everyday is completely unyielding to forms of representation (description or theory); rather it is to suggest that certain forms of discourse are not adequate to their objects and at times fail to accommodate them at all."
                                    Highmore- Everyday Life + Cultural Theory. (THE EVERYDAY)
(Johnstone, S (2008) The Everyday. London: Whitechapel

“The other side of this is that there might well be forms of representation that are more appropriate, more adequate, for attending to the everyday.”

-          Adequacy

-          Appropriateness

-          Accuracy

-          Efficiency

-          Essentiality

“If, for example, the everyday is seen as a ‘flow’, then any attempt to arrest it, to apprehend it, to scrutinise it, will be problematic.”

But to map it is just to acknowledge.
Continuous... Ineffectual? Yes, no? Who cares?
A nod to the everyday.

“Simply by extracting some elements from the continuum of the everyday, attention would have transformed the most characteristic aspect of everyday life: its ceaseless-ness.”

So you can’t pin it down. But mapping + documenting it in its ceaseless-ness isn’t pinning it down. It’s the opposite, especially in my context -
Detecting the ever-changing nature of my everyday.
- Attempting to track that, maybe, + understand patterns. But not really efine. I think.
(Am I an observer, or am I interfering? Which is it better to be? What is the significance of being one or the other?)