twelve in fourteen

all things happen when they need to.

 

tonight i need to write  a post to link from this blog to the next.  within the framework of reflection, the next blog has come about because of this one.

this one saw me attempt 18 responses to opportunities. some were more of an opportunitiy than others. i’ve leanrt about myself in doing what i’ve done this year.

my life is controlled by ups and downs some of which i have control of and others i do not.  ups are fueled by positive interactions with others.  i strive for more positive interactions.

i’ve reflected upon my vunerability while blogging.  i’m in control of that vunerability and see the benefits of being vunerable.  i need to manage how my feeling vunerable affects my ability to be me and to makes things.

this evening the last of 2014, there is a tension in the air like a fire in a stove burning red hot and in need of a little more air to produce a bright yellow flame.

i hold my head up and look to the horizon, inhale the cold crisp dry night air, smile and wait to walk some more.

thank you to all of you who have read this blog, interacted with it and tweeted about it.

i woke this morning, checked my emails and a feeling of excitement rolled over me like a gentle wave on a summers evening.

it’s the last day of 2014.

i’ve had an interesting history with last days. while still living at home i quite often had last days of a theatrical production, culminating in a last night, a get out and a party.  those last nights filled me with sadness as the group i was in was coming to a close.

while at drama college i can’t remember a similar last night trauma, possibly because when one production closed it meant we’d move onto another. i see a continuation there…

the only traumatic thing i can recall right now was on a first night. the name of the play eludes me but it began with a shooting in the drawing room. the scene change reverses the room by 180 dgrees and for the rest of the script the who did it is slowly revealed.  the script required a prop to emulate the result of the shooting and my part in the 180 degree scene change was to clean the wall.  on the first night we did the change and there was no debris to clean up.  i think we were amazed and possibly giggled a lot !

in considering other projects i’ve been involved with that came to an end, one that jumps out was my 30 days in geneva.  we worked everyday. when i got to go home it was like a dream, i couldn’t beleive it to be happening.

today i am enjoying it happening.

 

 

i’v learnt of myself that my emotional self quite often rules the intelligent self.  this at times makes my life quite difficult as there are contradictatory events occurring simultaneously.

 

often i need a simple mediatative environment in which to find a calm centre.  i find the outside world often to be to complex and confusing.  i see a world in  which those within it are happy it is like it is.

 

on the last day of 2014 … i sit.  outside the fog is clearing and a #bluesky starts to reveal itself.

 

 

 

a year a go i wrote

” i’m going to attempt to make 12 applications to opportunities in 2014. having made so few in 2013 this attempt is somewhat of an undertaking.”

 

i can look back today and say i achieved what i attempted.

 

today i sense a movement forward from a year ago.

 

in looking forward, i want to build on the sense of excitement i had this morning.  i want to achieve those little things around the house i set myself after the move in may this year.

it feels important to be happy and energised.  i know when i’m happy and energised that those around me are happier too.

 

i note it’s easier to write about what i’m going to do than to do what i’m going to do.

 

the new blog will be about what i do.  this feels as big an undertaking as a year ago wanting to make 12 applications and write about the experience.  in writing about what i do, it feels that i’m going to be up against the boundaries of perception of what is expected to be written about here on the a n blogging paltform.

i am of course talking about pushing my own boundaries … daring to be my whole self … daring to be vunerable.

 

there’s something i will need to manage.  the panic.

 

it doesn’t happen all the time but when it does it derails most of me.  it’s all internal and i don’t understand where it begins or why it happens.   if i write about it, it’ll be because i need to write about it to get it out, i’ll not need any comments or support as that is local to me but it feels important to include it to represent the whole self….

 

so the blog i’m about to begin will be my attempt to represent my whole self as i pursue my career and attempt to find the elusive financial income i so desire.

 

for sometime i’ve been a member of the isadora user community via their forum. i rarely mention it on this blog as i perceive there to be a gap between the two communities that some how i traverse.

the isadora community share knowledge on the forum.  i’ve learnt a lot about the application and it’s possibilities. (1)

i mention this part of my sphere of interest as this evening i’ve recieved notification of a comment on a thread i’m an active member of.

“…….. thanks to your help and tutorials. I am going to be composing music and producing a show for our local professional ballet company next year and hoping to integrate eMotion, motion capture, Isadora and Ableton Live.I’ve got some fun investigation and experimentation ahead of me! ”

 

in june of 2014 i recorded some emotion tutorials and linked them to the isadora forum.  emotion is the work of some french dudes and the videos of their work with emotion are breath taking.  before my tutorials there was very little infomation about how the programme worked.  from what i gleened on the forum and playing with emtion, i taught myself about what it does and made tutorials accordingly.  my hope was that by sharing what i’d been able to learn it might help others by speeding up their production time.

in the autumn of 2014 i learnt of an experimental work in austria that had benefitted by the work i’d done on the tutorials.

for the record, here’s a link to the first emotion tutorial.

 

i think i need to reconsider why i edit myself and what i do relative to the a n blogging platform.  i suspect that i’m transfixed on the model of artist that breaks new ground in human knowledge and expresses that in a new to human kind kind of way.  i wonder if those golden days of discovery are past …. or simply evolved to be something else.

i need to loose my embarresment of not being a painter …   detox myself of the  people  who see art as being simply about painting.

 

not to self: stand tall, be proud of what you do.

 

(1) http://troikatronix.com/troikatronixforum/discussions

2 days to 15, am i already walking the path i want to be on in 15?  today as a family we went out and explored the town and river walk fueled by best chips and good humour.

once back home i set up my arduino christmas present and started to play with a temperature sensor and an led.  as i write i’m aware of subtle room temperature changes by a green led turning on at differing brightness.

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my day began slightly in an inward mood. this sometimes happens to me. i monitor my biorythyms to help me understand what is happening to me.  the site i currently use gives a whole month to view.  it’s helped me a lot when things do seem all rather on top of me. there has been a correlation to where the curves are.  i continue to attempt to create something from the maths of the three primary curves.

 

 

i return quickly to add another reflective post because i’ve realised the importance of helping others to understand what it is i do.

there is a slight paradoxical situation here. for the wider audience i’ve already set myself out as someone keen to let them see my work for what they think it is.  my current statement on my current website is nearly all encoded into qr images.

i do this in response to wanting to be able to be myself without being criticised for what i do  or reflected upon by those who wouldn’t attempt to do what i do.

the qr images also show how i like to discover things that i didn’t realsie i didn’t know. the natural world is full of beautiful and interesting things waiting to be discovered.

there have been passages of thought where i wonder about using a blog on a n to speak more openly about what i think and do.

however i do seem to be regularly coming against something in my sub conscious that really makes me uncomfortable about doing this.  it might be connected to the earlier point about not wanting to be criticised.

part of my education into art has shown me how the criticism of it is very much an integral part of what makes it flourish.

so if i’m to be criticised i think i need to be happy with myself and what i’m doing.  i will after all need to square up to the criticism if it and myself are to be considered in wider circles.

so the new blog will be about me, my practice and those things that i consider and have reactions towards. it’ll also be about things i like to play with, like arduino and isadora. both of these are environments in which programming happens to realise an idea.

so what of my ideas?

 

 

ummm…

 

 

what of my life ?

 

i went for a walk this afternoon.

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i get out when i can, to walk the dog and think about my some current thoughts.  i enjoy taking photographs on my smartphone.    i have a dslr however i don’t take that out very often.

i’m as good as a being the step father to three children and on the brink of something legal with my partner whose children they are.  all of them are inquisitive and needing small amounts of things to be done that often interupt my thinking.

we all live in a house that is in the early stages of renovation.  this is something i’m on the front seat of making happen.  i’ve seen how the first phase of jobs has had a massive positive impact on the children and our relationship.  we have the next phase at the planning stage.  i will make the house things happen alongside all the other things that i do.

while studying for my degree in fine art i somehow missed out the period of art history in which abstraction started.  mathew colling’s documantary on abstraction helped to open my eyes to it’s beginnings and i wonder how the initial time of abstraction sit in our  culture today.  i know from my facebook interactions with collings that he has very little respect for me, however he knows me by another name.  i am after all not a particle physisicist.

i’m not even sure if i’m an artist.  i’ve had many people describe me as an artist and i’ll not argue with that.  it is though a dilema that has been with me for sometime.  it was mostly driven by having worked with other artists including tony oursler, isaac julien, moataz nasr, steve mcqueen, and emily jacir.  my dilema was how can i be an artist, i am not at the same level as these people.  my anxiety to the word artist has  recently wained alot.

 

when i reflect further back to the things that i have made what do i remember?  i remember the shock and amazement of discovering m king hubbert’s peak oil theory. it was so preposterous at the time, it got him sacked.

my reaction to it was to make a video.  this started my interest into the issue of how as a species we accept and adapt our evolution based upon how our evolution is affecting the way in which the planet upon which we live is evolving and this being in a manner that could theoretically affect our living upon it.

 

so in turn i’ve become interested in how groups of people living upon the planet attempt to tell others about this evolutionary paradox.

my current state of thinking about it all has got me to the cup of tea challenge, a collaboration with transition belper.  it’s the first activity in something we call the big energy project.

 

i used to be afraid of saying what interested me and what i explored as i was anxious that it wouldn’t be a significantly high enough intellectual level.  the paradox of this anxiety was what ever it was, it’ll be criticised anyway as that’s what happenes.  so really is this about taking on intellectual heavy weights in a grossly out of balance contest ?

 

this leads me to the snee snaw of three years ago and more recently something that has a current working title of snee.

 

the new blog will also take into account some aspects of training that i’ll be taking in early 2015.  one is for pleasure and one for cpd.  i’m going to take an introduction to listening skills for counselling in january. my attempt to become an art therapist didn’t get me as far as starting the course. with counselling i’m hoping to get a little further.  the other course is for fun and considers how to make a game app for the android platform.

 

i’m looking forward to being me on the new blog.

 

i’m looking forward to what i can acheive in 2015.