ANA: ROOM OF SILENCE

R O O M OF S I L E N C E

[ Steve's notes: Sorry for the delay in getting back. There is just one comment below, I made a small point about your reading of the Merleau-Ponty text. I will just make a note here. I am very positive about the honesty and straightforward nature of the text. You are good at describing your own motivations.I think it would be a good practice going forward to give clear descriptions of your work and be clear about your own motivations and desires for the work, the more you write, the more precise you will become. I think you will benefit from finding ways to articulate why you make particular choices about your work There is a method in the choices we make, even if they seem to be instinctive. I think a big part of the masters course is finding ways and means to understand and articulate one's own motivations and recognising our actions as methodical. But, everyone's method is different. ]

1: What are your ambitions for this trimester (Jan-April)?

   To find more silence in my head and use it for reaching focus in learning new skills. 
   I need a very focused energy for sitting at a desk and learning new software. 
   Finish the reading list.
   Feel good about being here.
   Uploading my stuff on that archiving machine in the corner 

2:What orders your life? (work for money; art work; big projects; family obligations; helping friends &c.)

The combination of my head and emotions.
    When there is a clean passage through those channels, all of my to do-s and obligations come as super fluid daily nuances.

 3: What are you working on now? (what, how and why)

  I’m working on learning how to edit - using a software. 
   Over the winter vacation I made a quantity of video footage that needs to be out together cohesively. 
   Having changed my initial idea for the Eye project, because a family member I wanted to interview for it didn’t feel like doing it, and the  whole thing that I had planned kind of fell apart,
   I ended up with loads of improvised footage of daily meditation visuals.  
   These visuals vary, the  footage contains observations from a monk-like me , spending very solitary and meditative times alone on a boat during Christmas, 
   and me being back among people, being on a rehearsal just before a theatre play.

   Mastering the editing skills would give me immense flexibility in my future work.

4: What choices did you recently make? (in relation to work) aka = identify choices you recently made.. 5: Why did you make those choices?

   I made a choice trying not to worry about not doing money work, because it keeps blocking me from being fully in this “schooling” process.
   I decided to give this programme until the end of the year without conciously over criticising it, in order to use that same energy for reversing everything into my own benefit. 
   I made this choices because I seemed to be in a block, wasting my potential on personal earthquakes in order to get to this point. 

6: What non-fiction have you recently read? 7: Describe it (aka what is the thesis and what does it conclude?) 8: How does it relate to your work? (aka = how is it useful to understanding your own work?)

   I’m cross reading The phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty and also  a bunch of articles on eflux, and other art related magazines. 
   The book is a compilation on philosophical essays on the essence of perception. It basically takes you on a ride on experiencing a perceptions from every material and non material 
    standpoint, all the way to your consciousness. 
   It relates to my needs of being flexible and open as wide as possible to understanding and being concentrated on a difficult read, as well as being fed other viewpoints.    In other   words, to upgrade my own perception. 
  I’m not able to dwell on the conclusion of the thesis. 

[<you haven't outlined the thesis or the conclusion. I get the impression that understanding this text isn't the important thing for you. If understanding isn't important, what is the interest: is it aesthetic, evocative?]

9: Who is on your art radar? (describe the work)
     A recent discovery called Nina Katchadourian. I like the unpretentiousness of her ways while observing with superb wit and precision,  the world around her.    
     She works with collage, installation and video, I think. The work i saw was a collaged collection of everyday objects she played with while spending time on planes or trains. 

10: Was media are you consuming?

        I’m binging on Instagram, still trying to find a tasteful balance in the field of visual information, be it photography or art direction.

11: Is there a relation to your work? What is it?

    Questioning my own in relation to what is out there, relation.

12: What question needs an answer?

     Question 12