scope to play

acoustically a sine wave produces a very lovely tone – balanced and even and i think that’s been the week i’ve had.

it began with a good feeling and is ending with another good feeling.

i’ve made progress with my need to feel i can work in real time to generate responsive visuals.  it’s taken a while for all the possibilities to be considered, researched, explored and reflected upon.  i’m back to something simple and it feels good.

monday was a blast – i got in full flow – relaxed – and made.

and made

later in the week, i  visited …

the museum of making at derby silk mill.  still 2 years away from re-opening i’ve been in this week to see where the work has got to and consider wether to go in and film some more despite not yet having confirmation that the ( filming – non linear ) project will continue.  time to gamble and film.

hello again.  this week has been considering the non linear format ahead of what i hope will be another commission to film and produce a non linear project for the ever developing museum of making project.

earlier this year when tranche 3 looked liked it was on the cards i began t0 process and reflect about the 2nd tranche.  the project space in the browser has been my focus this week.

using files recorded in my garden and forest school site, i’ve been playing.

reflecting upon the process of making the second edition (shimmering place) i see how my other work commitments and budget meant that i didn’t push the possibilities of the browser space too much.  now with my summer commitments known and rumours of an increase in the  budget i’m motivated to explore how i can produce a project that works well to both a mobile device in the hand and a laptop / desktop screen.

its been a good week, working on camera settings, post production techniques and form of the non linear space.  in my playing i’ve started considering something about taking time out in a conscious reaction to imposed pressure – through relating video and audio recordings made in nature.

because of  the play i’m currently engaged with i feel excited to go back into the silk mill and look forward to begin another period of work there.

there is a certain amount of gambling that the commission from the silk mill will be confirmed – time will tell.

i’d love to be able to capture my feeling and place it into the opening of this post because i’d love to share with a feeling of uplift, hope, optimism and all round head nodding pleasure.

you might have read my previous post – it was quite personal and heavy going – so if you haven’t read it stay with this one there’s way more good stuff coming your way.

i stare out the window at a blue sky with wispy white cloud and the buildings and trees below the sky defined by crisp contrast.

this week has seen me make a couple of images i feel really pleased with and i’m excited to share them …

the first – made yesterday – is a no looking drawing  made in 30 seconds of the person i was looking at.  it was part of an exercise on praise within a training day i attended.

the task of drawing without looking at what you’re drawing is something i’ve come across before – it’s probably something we’ve all done at some point and for differing reasons.

yesterday we made this task quite soon after lunch – i was full, happy and feeling relaxed.  maybe because i’d done this style of drawing before i had some insight into how to spatially place my marks on the post-it note.  the scale of the drawing made this spatialisation easier.

having completed it and being invited to look at what i’d drawn  – i was thrilled to see my drawing of the man sat in front of me.

there comes a time within playing where the play moves onto to having more meaning.  my coding of a means to create a digital drawing has started to move towards being more meaningful this week.  in part driven by preparing for a session i’m delivering later in the summer and  in part by a need to be able to interact with the skin and bone trio.

i reflect that quite often i will play for hours coding and saving images and fall short of taking that play onto something more meaningful.  in practice terms this might be a workflow thing or me simply being in a headspace that negates the play i’m engaged in.  solitary play making it difficult to appreciate what it is i’ve created.

i read workflow and inside i’m screaming !  the play hasn’t lit me up to the point of making my insides sing – this is after all what play can do – its the part of play that takes us to the next stage of learning.

i made this a couple of weeks ago.

it’s one outcome from playing with code to make a square.  what i didn’t fully realise at the time was that despite making this something inside didn’t feel right.  thus i held back sharing the image or any of the variants i made.  i do wonder if i can use facebook more to share my various playings.  hang on though – my facebook artist page is incredibly difficult to feel at one with – thus i tend to ignore it.  maybe i can play more with it …

there has been a shift in my thinking this week and for the better.  i’ve been feeling good when looking at what i’ve made and its a happy return to this feeling.

this image has helped me believe this week.

– – – i’ve started to listen for the singing.

this is nice – a wednesday morning and i sit down to write a blog post.  on radio 4 is a dialogue between male politician and female reporter, electoral fraud was mentioned briefly however my focus is on the renewed interest in my practice.

until monday of this week i’d been going through a period of feeling unhappy about myself and my practice.  it had got to the point of feeling i knew nothing and i had little belief in myself to get myself past this.

so what happened to alter this ?

i went for a walk with the dog, the kitchen was cleaned and i watched a video tutorial by the rainbow unicorn man.  these three things set up the conditions to start to move forward again.

yesterday i rested a painful ankle and started to work on research for a couple of things i’m doing later in the year.

i kept the momentum up.  i’m enrolled on a mooc at the moment – it had a drawing opportunity – draw the picture you hear in the audio description.

the rainbow unicorn man got me believing in using processing again to create something to draw with.  keeping it simply and fun i wrote some code quickly and ran what i had written.  it took a few attempts to debug it but i did get something that works – something to add to and develop.  i screen grabbed one of the compositions i made :

i didn’t work out what was causing the block – it didn’t matter as the block was so all encompassing that i knew i needed to get past it – even though it felt i never would.

its still early days.  being gentle and encouraging of myself is still important.

the positive thing at the moment is the weight of the mental vale has eased, my life feels again to have purpose, the feeling of futility and no point no longer sweeps over me like an orbiting satellite.

time to walk again – one small step after one small step.