Had to rearrange things a bit, so didn’t get to FACT and Mike on Friday. Instead I looked into whether ‘To have a studio or to not have a studio’, I do the thinking in my head, the work on the streets and the editing on the laptop, but would I benefit from having a studio. I spoke with Justin Keeper who is the Creative Development manager for Mushroom works, which runs a artist studio complexes in Newcastle and Gateshead. They have a number of film makers in their studios. He thinks I would benefit from having a studio as it would give me access to a creative community, peer to peer support and raise my visibility and I would come across as more professional as I could meet people etc at the studio rather than in town at coffee shops. He feels that yes the studio would be an added expense but it could be just what I need to make me more business minded and help me develop commercially. It is difficult. Are artists in todays world a business. I think I read too much Foucault when young, as I feel much of what I do is about anti professionalism, and breaking down the discourse of exclusion and it is hard to be commercially minded when the work I make is kind of anti establishment. More to ponder. Can I make the work I make but approach it with a greater level of career building awareness. I think of the projects as one at a time,and that every work might be the last opportunity I get, so I don’t plan ahead. We spoke about a a work such as ‘bus station sonata’ and how maybe I could tour a work like that, create it anew for a number of festivals. I am not sure I have the mindset for such a way of working, I normally make a work, then move on to another idea driven by a need to see how an idea looks when translated to reality. I know how ‘bus station sonata’ looks. Though if I keep going from idea to idea, will I in end exhaust myideas, maybe I should try and develop the bank of ideas I have already made and that I know work. So do multi-media artists working in the digital realm need a studio?
commuter play Beethoven
