i’ve tried doing some stuff today. it’s turned into a kind of self test about creativity. i’ve been looking through some old vhs tapes, after this morning’s walk and recording some things i saw. the tapes were recorded ten years ago. i brought a few tapes to play with to the studio this afternoon. there was drawing and plastering and cursing going on and me there playing with an old vhs deck and a mini dv camcorder.
i’ve uploaded some short clips to you tube. i feel deflated instead of inflated. i conclude that what i’m doing is not creative. what i am doing is merely placing on line some clips from a broadcast programme, with specialist interest to those who like racing and motorcycles and might be interested to see some archive footage from racing ten years ago.
so what can i do with archive of broadcast footage, to be creative and be interesting to watch? i guess because i’m asking that suggests that i’m not ever going to be able to do anything creative with the collection of tapes that i have. the best that i could do with it is to make some sort of edit from it, processing the material, altering it’s formal qualities. now there’s the rub. i like motorcycling, so to challenge the formal properties of the footage is to alter, and i don’t know if i want to do that, especially as 10 years ago the machinery was quite different to today.
the best i might do is to make a first year degree student style edit, for editing practice and for the fun of it.
i’m being hard on myself now.
this morning i used the device to capture two periods of moments. very observational, very much me seeing something special and recording what i saw. still thinking of hockney, what skill do i have to make that everyday scene special? which leaves me thinking, why is hockney’s skill related item special. is it because it is a painting and there has been a long history of painting and as such adds to that long line. the high definition video i have of the collection of moments, is part of a recent spin off of broadcast development. something that has happened so fast, it is seemingly still very new and fresh and as such has to be used in that manner.
maybe the lack of boundaries is causing me to be defocused and as such wander uncontrollably at the moment. or…
this is research for something i don’t yet know about, and as such i can’t intellectualise about it as i know not of it. while in this research period, i see that there does not have to be a focus on audience, as this research is into process and not outcome. as it is process research, the notion of communicating something can be somewhat vague, as the action of research in itself communicates something. indeed, if everything that i did was viewable, it would be intereptable as it was being viewed.
wow i’ve counter argued against myself about not being creative.
i come back to hockney and his warning. it’s about what i do. what i’m doing at the moment doesn’t feel meaningful. i thought the looking through the old vhs tapes would have been more meaningful. it’s only been one tape and so far at a personal level i have enjoyed hearing the names of riders i’ve not heard for a while, however i see the looking at the tapes as a personal recollection, a bit like looking at old photographs of past holidays.
oh my goodness. the collection becomes my window of my past, it’s happy times defined by motorcycling, all the other stuff of the time, long been forgotten. if that’s the case, i can go through the tapes looking for interesting moments, there’s hours of tapes. if i do do it, i need to maintain a balance.
