Gabriela being shot
10am
Tuesday
In response to a series of seminars on site/place/location, body, portrait/reputation we have been assigned groups to deliver 30 minute unassessed presentations to the rest of the group. Preparation began on Tuesday, continued today and this Tuesday we will all put forward our responses which should be an entertaining way to spend 6 hours.
Our group has been inspired by Frankenstein’s Monster as a result of Dave Hazels very entertaining talk on Art and Death. Today Gabriela shot (with a camera) Tomasz in the graveyard beside Mary Shelley’s tomb. The process was uncomfortable for Tomasz. The idea is to assemble photographs of sections of Tomasz shot by Gabriella around Gabriela by Tomasz so that she assumes his visual identity. Of course she will not but the act will allude to this. More interesting was watching Tomasz squirm as he was quite directly objectified by his female photographer.
After taking the shots we moved indoors where we used photocopies of cultural theory books in place of printed photographs to re-cloth Gabriela. In contrast Gabriela was very comfortable with this process despite the proximity of Tomasz throughout the procedure. There was a humour to it and Sam was reminded of games played as a child where you would wrap your friend in toilet roll. It was quite playful and it was not the first time I’d used Philosophical Theory of Culture for an alternative means.
I’m late writing my blog because I’ve been applying for a job that has resulted directly from my internship which I started today. Thank you cosmos for the break. Working was so pleasantly enjoyable, I hardly noticed the time go by.
Last Friday I was feeling terribly down and couldn’t face the world but I promised myself just to try and make things happen and that’s when the snow began to collect on this ball. (So far it’s not worth throwing never mind having the ability to support a freestanding figure but it’s a start.) I was sat chatting with Shivaji outside in the cold about his PDP, we decided to find somewhere more comfortable to lounge and made our way to the gallery space where there were some benches and the benefit of central heating. It was then that I met Violet McClean who overhead my accent and so went on a conversation between us and Stephanie James the curator about the existence of the ‘baloney stone’.
Out of politeness and to change the subject I enquired about the show that was currently being hung and Violets role in the procedure. Before I knew it I had arranged a meeting to begin an internship at the gallery. I honestly thought it would come to nothing but thankfully my pessimism did not win the day and you can now say hello to the Friday girl.
I’ve got a lot of experience with gallery education, arts organisation admin etc to I took to this role like a duck to water. I see things and I get things done. Violet seems to acknowledge my experience and is happy to give me responsibilities such as overseeing the hanging of the next show by the Arts and Events students. She’s also getting me involved in the finance side of the gallery, something I don’t have much experience in. I feel valued and I feel like some of my skills are being put to use even if there is no direct monetary gain.
But as I mentioned this jobs came out of today. We had a group visiting who had been part of a training and development programme called AMONITE for cultural leaders in Dorset, so it was a great opportunity for me to find out who is doing what in the area. Somewhere in the day Dorset Arts Week was mentioned so I had a look for it when I got home today and guess what there’s a vacancy for a position that I’m soo qualified for. I haven’t seen it advertised anywhere else so I’m hoping I have a chance with this one.
Please please please let the ball keep rolling.
Some good news at last. I had a meeting today with the text+work gallery at AUCB and I will be starting work there tomorrow and every Friday for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately there is no fee for this but whilst I’m not working I thought it best to do a little volunteering.
Also there may be an opportunity to work for a few hours assisting a student install their work for their final year show which will be paid, not very much but a start I suppose.
I’m just so tired an ill I can’t talk about the Hew Locke talk and exhibition, the film I’ve learned how to develop, the book I’m reading on performance or what I’m thinking. I just want to be in good shape for my first day tomorrow so I think I’ll have an early night.
Had a lot of good conversations over the last few days. Yesterday we were preparing for group presentations in response to three seminars we’ve had. Afterwards I spent some time chatting with the members of the group about art, education, writing, feminism, separating yourself from your emotions, how to write about your work when you are your work and validity.
I presented my analogy of the artist-writer and the lawyer. Our male colleague agreed with that analogy and said that when talking about your art you should not question what you are doing or say anything that could plant a seed of doubt in the hearers of your case. He also suggested that it is futile to seek validity from peers, tutors, galleries but to seek it in the words and works of the artists who inspire us.
Today I bumped into a part-time 2nd year student in the library. We talked about presenting ourselves and how there is an expectation to do that in a certain way. Her natural approach is unconfident, apologetic, doubtful and that on one occasion was praised for this honest approach.
So what do you do? I started reading ‘The Transformative power of Performance’ by Erika Fischer-Lichte on the bus home. It starts with Marnia Abramovic’s Lips for Thomas and how we experience this type of art. I’ve only gotten a few pages in but it’s ringing true in my head and may well halp me with my writing goal I set myself at the beginning of the week.
Tomorrow I have a meeting to help me plan my time. Hopefully this will get things in order and allow me to achieve all these tasks. I’ve been ill now for about a month so it’s hard to keep going but I got to just keep chipping away at it.
Shot my first roll of black and white today that was fun, I haven’t developed it yet so I’m excited about that. It came about after a conversation with Dave Hazel who is one of the photography lecturers. I have a plan but I don’t know how to put it together. When I talk to photographers they say ‘aw it’s easy’, but I don’t have the confidence in the process and it’s all a bit start stop. So I need to check each step of the way. It may well do people’s heads in but I want to learn.
I’ve been reading up on critical thinking too. It seems the gist of it is to question arguments by looking at how they’ve been backed up. It’s a spiral. Someone writes, says or does something and someone else questions it. From there someone else questions their opinion using more evidence. Maybe it’s like being a detective or maybe more like a lawyer presenting a case and backing it up with evidence. So can I do it? Can I critically analyse work, can I see through the opinions of others, and come back with opinions of my own that are backed up with evidence? Well I have to start somewhere and I need a deadline because that will make me do it. So I give myself one week to critically analyse the work of Janine Antoni which I will post here next Monday night.
