461 – t3

after 5 months of the most strangest time, i’m preparing for another arts and heritage volunteers met to share, discuss and catch up with the three artist commissions that will be permanently installed in the museum of making.

in those 5 months we’ll have had our own experiences of the covid-19 pandemic and collectively we now prepare for whatever next might happen with it.

during those months i wasn’t 100% certain about wether the museum opening would be delayed so maintained a level of moving the project forward.  i’m glad to say there’s a planned opening in 2021.

so what am i going to be talking about in the meeting ?  it’s prototype 4 !!

in this version the interface with accessibility options is up for testing and feedback.  the content of this version is some of the signed off video of the construction work at the museum of making.  the main caveat of this prototype is i still have a lot of work to do on the linking of clips, and as i add more content this will continue to evolve.

with the interface i’ve wandered into a graphic design headspace and i’m enjoying the playful feel to what’s happening as a result.

i’m looking forward to sharing the interface with the volunteers and staff and hearing their reactions.

the project is starting to feel a lot more real – we’re discussing hardware installation dates and when the main contractor will prepare to leave the site.

somehow i need to get back into the mill for one last filming session prior to the main contractor leaving.  once the meeting is complete i’ll be able to look forward into the diary and start to negotiate what might be possible, given the current level of guidance and restrictions.

after christmas with the building handed back to the museum trust, i plan to go back in and film aspects of the recant of the museum collections.

in the meantime i’m working through editing the footage i already have.  during lockdown i spent time arranging clips so this process now will be as smooth and as efficient as possible.  with so much content to work through i am really mindful of time efficiency when i sit down to work.

one last thing i’ll add at this time – the project feels like its starting to come to me.  what do i mean?  for long periods last year i was filming and filming with not really knowing what the project would look like.  now as i share prototype 4 and think about the coming weeks of work i have much more of a sense of what the work is – it’s coming to me.  i hope i’ve gone a little way of explaining this.

i’m looking forward to the meeting and the coming weeks of adding content into the project.

footnote from meeting.

we heard how red had first approached the museum 11 years ago to discuss the possibility of creating a derby lockout image as part of his hidden histories series.  i had no idea the discussion had been so long !

we also heard from toni how her work is the culmination of an 8 year journey for her.

it got me thinking about the work i’m making.  in 2011 i chanced upon the non linear concept.  at the time they were refered to as  database narrative films.  the concept of having a database of narrative units and the relationship of these to the viewer lit me up at the time and i began a journey of discovery of possibilities.

last night i found it all rather poetic.

speaking of the pandmic feels like an important thing to do and to reflect a little here so in years to come we’ll look back and see what it was like.

in the previous post i spoke about how i was going to set up the dining table to work on and indeed it saw me sat there for a lot of time.

with the uncertainty of the pandemic came delay with my progress within this project.  for several months i maintained a slow ahead both position in case the museum did suddenly get finished.

when news was available it confirmed how pandemic had affected the progress on site and for me this was a relief – to know what was going on.

yesterday i packed up the dining table.  i was in a place where i felt ready to go back to the studio and resume working – to rebuild momentum with the non linear project felt the right thing to do.

i moved back into the studio and prepared myself for working today.

but.

the uncertainty of covid-19 remains.

one of our daughters had come home from work on sunday with the beginnings of a cold.  she’d worked 5 days straight and as a teenager the whole looking after oneself isn’t yet a cool thing to do.

yesterday afternoon while i was out she started to cough a little.

today was meant to be her first day at college.  she’s done the responsible thing and stayed home.  the family is going to self isolate based on an interpretation of three sentences on a website.  we can’t yet find a local test.

the guidelines say we need to isolate for 14 days – despite no clinical diagnosis and no available tests.

i feel uneasy as today was going to be me in the studio following through a plan.  i do have the minimum resources to do this at home; however, it doesn’t yet feel the right thing to do.

some minutes later …

a test has been found and booked nearby for later today.  getting a test now alters everything.  within 48 hours we’ll have a clinical diagnosis and either a remaining part of 14 days with good reason or being able to return back to what we’re calling normal.

i expect that our storey is very common and actually becoming quite normal.

i think what i’ve taken from today is something will guide me into how to include references to how the pandemic impacted upon working on site at the museum of making.   i do have an idea …

i am becoming motivated to work once again.

— update —- the result was negative.