professional development

there was a clue in the name of the recent meeting in birmingham that i was slow to pick up on…….. co-development.

for me the development is coming in relation to “engaged practice.” at the meeting i actually asked “what is socially engaged practice?”

i have to overcome a preconception that socially engaged practice is a vehicle to voice personal anxiety connected to mainstream attitudes within a societal construct.

what i think i need to concentrate on is how engaged practice could give me a bounded space in which to work.

while in conversation at birmingham it stuck me that i am in some way not fully utilising the information that a-n- works to make available. for example i have somehow been over looking the forums.

i have not been fully using the knowledge bank.

in helping myself to find a boundary for my practice i’ve found this article on a-n- www.a-n.co.uk/p/84628/

it talks about engaged practice and i am going to make time to read it and take on board what it says.

i don’t mind admitting that i have been unsure for quite sometime now where i fit in within artistic practice theories. this has affected my ability and confidence in mediating myself in the public sphere and as a result have maybe become a little too enigmatic and reclusive.

if i am going to have a sustainable practice i know that i need to know where i fit in. by this i mean that i recognise that the human animal is very cautious about it’s bounded space, ie those making the opportunities know what they are looking for.

i can go on making opportunities for myself. this is exciting and rewarding however what it requires is to be able to mediate quickly that space in which my idea exsists and hope that i can pitch it into some space that the listener relates to.

in birmingham i heard of the theatre in a retail outlet. i’m so sorry but i can’t remember where or who is running that project. i really enjoyed hearing about it and found it quite inspiring.

in developing my professional practice i continue to develop at a personal level. the two are connected and at times get out of sync with each other and i become unhappy. i continue to strive to find a happy syncronisation.

i once again turn to the motorcycle racer, striving for a set up that allows for the fastest most smoothest rhythm around the circuit.

this feeling of a flowing rhythm over rides the recent feeling associated with football where i was convinced that i was in a mid league one position but mentally had projected myself into a mid way premier league position. this conflict of where i thought i was with where i feel i am has been rather draining. i prefer the motorcycle racer image to the football image. i notice that while feeling down i used a metaphor that reflected my mental position.

the engaged practice thinking puts me back on my bike. it gives me space in which to propose a project based on an omnipresent yet invisible question.

i feel more inspired than i have for a while.

i remember claus oldenbach’s proposal for nelson’s column, a giant gear lever, proposed and maybe never intented to actually be made, simply discussed.

engaged practice…. it might be the “something” that has been missing …

i’m returning to a thread of research with a renewed idea about what i’m doing

do i want to be lowly in the top flight or doing slightly better in the next division down.

with the news of the striker wanting to leave, how does it affect the plans going forward?

being invited to think forward… i enjoyed that.

i went to the recent a-n- organised meeting in Birmingham.

i’d like to be at more of this type of event. it helps me to see what is happening now. it’s very uplifting to be amongst people who lean to the amazing as opposed to being oppressed by how everything is dire right now.

part of the discussion i was in was to do with an audience for art. maybe there is a capitalist and post capitalist way of considering the audience. the capitalist way being that it’s up to them to get what “i’m” doing and if they don’t then i have to go out of my way to make them. this is of course assuming that a league table position is being ignored, as that makes a big difference to this attitude. the post capitalist way might be to allow the audience to see the work for what it is, to be confident in the use of the everyday language in talking about the conception and the making of the work.

and being respectful at all times.

on a table laid with 5 types of biscuits, will you like all of them, will you prefer one over another…

i beleive in post capitalist thinking. it’s something that not all will get, in the similar vain to the biscuit argument.