Over the last week I have been in digital residence on @undertowprojects, an artist run collective Instagram account for emerging artists. Having done something similar with @transientt last year I had a sense of how I wanted the week to flow, and this time did more preparation in mapping out the various posts. I decided I would work on the basis that people had not encountered my work before, so the first three days were an introduction to my body of work and areas of interest.
The second half of the week concentrated on my machine generated work and how I am now using machine learning as part of my process. I had to remember that people would encounter the posts in different ways and as such each one had to stand on its own as well as being part of a notional narrative thread across the week.
I very much enjoyed the editing process and found some of the things I learnt on Lewis Bush’s Photobooks workshop really valuable. This encouraged me to keep reviewing the order and to make clear decisions about the images I included.
The surprise for me during the process was how much I also wanted to include text, mainly in the form of quotes from my research. I felt they helped locate the work and show the clear link between my practice and research that I had outlined in my introduction. I am conscious that each of the post comments were reasonably long. Although I forgot a couple of times I did try and make sure I included an image description with each, this did add to the text, but I felt was important from an access perspective.
On the first day I posted three times to get a feel for likely engagement, that led me to post around 1pm and 6pm each day as that seemed best in terms of responses. I am mindful this was not an exercise in attracting likes, and comments but it is useful to know the work is being seen at least.
Reflecting on the process I am struck by how much my book objects are really an embedded aspect of my work. I produced Immateriality as a new work during the week and that was a very satisfying process, and something I’d like to do more with. It also got some supportive feedback.
I think it has helped give me a sense of future direction as I move towards my final MFA project. I am toying with the idea of an installation with physical threads and long hanging concertina books, we’ll see! I am left mulling over the issue of text and wondering where the balance is. Am I using it descriptively or is it integral? If I am using it descriptively does that mean I don’t have confidence in the work being able to standalone, or indeed, is the work strong enough to standalone? I think this perhaps brings me full circle back to the notions of aesthetics and beauty I recently explored. I also think I have a tendency to overcomplicate the work – Immateriality was a simple concept that seems to work well.
It feels like it has been a productive process and has given me plenty to think about in terms of what I do next.
I’m really interested in how your work is full of variety and yet still following a theme – something I know I need to learn more fully.
Thank you, I hope there is some sense of coherence. It is something I am often conscious of and this takeover/residency gave me an opportunity for a kind of audit to see if the core theme holds up. Someone recently described my approach a bit like a Catherine Wheel – lots of things fly out but a central focus is sustained.