Jujube/ojo

the idea

A month ago an email landed in my inbox and told me I'd got into a residency in the mountains of Southern Spain in December. In the proposal I simply wrote:

My inquiry: the forgetting (or questioning) of time. During the week of my residency I will observe my own changing perception of time with meditation, and externalize my findings in photography, video and prose.

I subsequently applied for a mobility grant from the European Cultural Foundation to cover the cost. Not knowing anything about the EYE project other than some deadlines, I tried to connect the materials I'd generate over the residency to what I might make for the EYE.

In the grant proposal[1] I wrote:

I will explore the notions of modern time and articulate its underlying structure biased for rush and perhaps a tendency to judge. I want to find the juxtapositions between the mentality fostered by urbanity and that by nature and bodily knowledge, and, further, to portray them with an empathy inspired by wilderness and self-resilience to a larger audience in the (post-)industrial cities...To achieve that, I will spend my days at Joya unlearning the familiar urban time-keeping through meditation, walks, documentation, and conversations with my hosts.'

The above is what I've conceptualized so far, and I'll revisit the context and framework after I make something concrete. Some of the text I might be using comes from General and Special Relativity. See research for non-linear --> EYE_Researchlabs#Collective_Research

the method

"Making work starts with setting rules for myself." Alisa, a fellow artist I met some time ago, described her process. For a dinner production, she set the rules to only use what she could find locally (whether through foraging or through the market, depending on the setting) and to set a ritual for the meal (only once everyone is served a dish can they start to eat). There were probably internal rules she laid down that I was not aware of, but I was amazed, if not awed, by the cohesion of her project. It was both thoroughly thought out and well executed.

I have set rules for myself before (the.train and the artist room in particular), and it seems to be the overarching methodology I've used for non-artistic works in architecture (discovery, research and synthesis) as well as related to the actual workflow employed in programming (specific instances followed by abstraction). Over the past two months at PZI I have noticed my tendency to gather, order and archive...

It's not just the reuse of old ways, however, but also the relationships I am developing with the new media I started to use. I feel uneasy with the analog photos. I have shot two b&w rolls and a color roll. A lot of the images came out soft and blurry and looked nothing like the reality that I experienced. They are a totally new categories of images compared to the photos I shot with a DSLR or a phone...

This needs more articulation, of course.

I will still gather the footage and photograph for the EYE project.

I will re-read some exercises from the Performance Artist's Workbook[2], which have been offering ways to carry out the gathering process.

synthesis/creation

I will write about time, my sense of time, the disconnections in my mind (and definitely in my body), anxiety, disappearance of anxiety, feeling alone, feeling loved (however partially), the good and the bad.

TODO:

Look through footage:

- from a residency in Finland (lots of food, fire, darkness, light through the windows...)

- water pipes in Tallin

- instagram videos

and find common threads. Perhaps I will use old footage as well.