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.