Following on from yesterday’s post, this entry continues the collaborative text by Islington Mill Art Academy members in which they critically respond to Jared Szpakowski’s visual blog:
Jackie Hayes, 21 August 2013 09.32 –
I headed straight for Google to translate the Polish words for city centre and communication system whilst considering the autobiographical relevance of these words and images to Jared, which he posted in response to the crit group discussion, as a blog entry.
http://threeteabagsinanenvelope.tumblr.com/post/58…
The speed of the flickering photographic book illustrations made viewing difficult. It had a similar effect to an uncomfortable strobe light or how rapid eye movement (REM) might be imagined before waking up or even semi-consciously trying to pin down an image whilst dreaming.
The threshold between sleeping and waking has parallels to Rachel Newsome’s current writing upon waking exercise and her reference to Jeanette Winterson’s metaphorical use of the household threshold. This sense of movement continues to Natalie’s remark about the backwards and forwards, non-linear progression of time. This could be envisaged as a cyclical sequence, reminiscent of the kind of internal circular discussions which hinder sleep, illustrated in a similar way by Beckett’s ‘Play.’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJSENSF_pes
Maurice Carlin, 21 August 2013 23:53 –
Jackie translates languages in the previous post, and this seems relevant when looking at Jared’s blog, which appears to stride at once the highly personal and completely casual, and so I find myself trying to decode what I see into something I can relate to between these distanced points.
I find myself repeatedly clicking the ‘random post’ link, bringing up various blog entries: the colour of driving licence forms, a rail bridge remembered from childhood, wasps outside the window and then, finally, a post about finding some old photographs, which turn out to be too personal for art appropriation, and this somehow seems to echo my experience of viewing the blog, a sense of looking where you’re not supposed to.
Each image has a ‘© IMAGE Jared Szpakowski 2013’ underpinning it, and perhaps this reinforces the sense of nosing into someone else’s private material. It brings up a question pertinent to the digital age, about how much of ourselves we ‘give away’ versus what we retain, and for whom?
Christa Harris, 22 August 2013, 12:17 –
To me, this conflict between the personal and impersonal is at the heart of the blog. Maybe it is the mundane made personal, an exploration of the moment. Ideas surrounding collecting and collections seem to be salient when viewing a blog, and maybe this one in particular. Collections of objects or experiences, moments pulled out of life and given significance by context. Collections can be seen as facets of the self, a public re-definition of who we are in the moment, at once highly personal and an outward statement. Collections can also betray a fear of letting things slip past; each photograph somehow seeming muted and melancholy, as if it already has the benefit of hindsight. IN this case it seems to be the care and attention to background and emphasis, the image becomes a sigh in the clutter if the internet. The idea of ‘giving away’ parts of ourselves, or retaining them seems interesting. One argument could be that by sharing, we are incorporating, making ourselves larger and more god-like.
