INTERVIEW

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Transcript Interview 1 (By Yuzhen) :

You have to take those away, it’s a physical act, and it..uhh. Then is when people are like.. they are more afraid to take that away. They don’t realize

- the strip is only on your project data or also on ----

no, its divided between levels. I have public data, private and so on until its very private, and the deeper the level goes the more stripes are on there as the levels go.. so you have to roll off the stripes

- also you transform the encrypted level to the physical

yeah

- actions

yeah that is actually an effort you have to go through

- I was wondering, do you think its different, make a difference if the people know you, if the reader knows or doesn’t know you before, will it make difference?

Yes it does make a difference, because uh, there is also.. if you look at some of the information I added, it’s inaccurate actually, but that’s the automated, I have these uuh, automated devices take my data. That’s how they provide it, but its not always accurate.

So people that know me will know that some things are inaccurate, but some people will know there are certain things are inaccurate, but people that don’t know me at all don’t know that.

- so for different readers, will see different connections
yes

- if the book will be exhibited at the exhibition are you supposed to have multiple readers reader it at the same time or..

uuh what do you mean exactly?

- the book, its this size (makes hand gestures) but if you want several people to read it at the same time, especially if you take a strip away. Is it supposed to be that multiple readers can read it at the same time or just one reader?

Supposed to be one reader, but I hadn’t really thought about it. Because also that’s why I made a physical book because when your reading online, or in the digital world or whatever you don’t know who else is reading the same info? Because everyone can be there, but when your reading a book by yourself you know its only you, so its maybe a different experience. But I haven’t thought about making a physical book that everyone can read at the same time yet.

- for you then it makes a difference when people read by themselves

yes

- so will you record their feedback or collect them looking in the end or how many strips they take away or.

I haven’t thought about that yet. Mm that’s a good point, I haven’t thought about that. But its definitely something I should think about actually.

- so whats it what your really interested in. do you know INSERT NAME work, ending candies where in the same as his wife who has died already, where he takes the candy wrappings, and its about taking the wrappings of to show the sweet

aahh

- the work made me think of you in relaton to this so how you can see the, how you protect the data, and the data in your domain, its like your privacy. You serve the visitors to read them and how they gonna share with the data makes a difference for you, and how you want to proceed for next year, for your work? Do you want to present this different layer?

Yeah. Now im thinking about what your just saying.. so Im a little.. what was the name of that artist?

- INSERT NAME

Youll have to write that down.

- yes, its interesting because.. I don’t really take every strip from your data, the data, the pictures or the text. The intimacy is different for everyone. The loss of a his lover is really intimate to him, so he invited the audience to share this layer they had before. but not everyone takes of the wrapper. So what do you want to share with the visitors, what do you want to show from you? From your data.

Yeah, that’s.. I don’t know that yet, that is something that I’m still developing, and it’s important. I should… yeah. But I’m not that far yet in my conceptualization.

- But do you have a precise month of data, because I read its about just one day?

Yeah

- Is that a special day or..

No its basically the first day on which all the devices that I installed were working. I though oh Ill use that day, because that’s the first day actually everything worked finally.

- if you have a choice will you make it different, will you use a different day instead of last time, with editing and looking at the data.

Well I was thinking about using all the data, but I don’t think know for sure yet. Im recording now all the data, it all works automatically, so I have everything, but I don’t know I’m going to use it.

- another question is will you sort through the data?

What?

- will you sort through the data, because you didn’t choose, for now you didn’t choose.

No I chose everything

- yes so there will be something true, something private, something wrong, all embedded all in one.

Yeah, yeah

- there are some secrets in there, luckily its dutch so almost no one here can read it

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Transcript Interview two (By Allyson):

- You have a background in photography but now you are working more with codes and programs and hacking, whats that about

Well it was like I had a project where I photographed the surface of our digital world, the datacenters and stuff, where our data goes through. I photographed it. I felt like it was more on the surface, I felt like I had to get deeper into it. So that’s why I decided to work inside that world, work in the deeper level.

- but you don’t think that now?

No

- your gonna get back into making things with a camera?

Well for the past few months I haven’t.. ive done things with code but what comes out of that is still images.

- using your cameraphone?

Yeah, yeah, but its not like im really into code per se, I use it to get images again, or footage. Its not like im doing anything different, its still the same medium in fact, because im still using pictures and..

- true, but it is a different medium, it’s a different process

yes, but now im thinking is that really necessary, im just a…

- I think in terms of how quickly you generate the material, it will be helpful with that, cause if you would try to get each image with a camera, that would take you more time
Yeah I tried it, but it was almost impossible

- but do you think that the way it looks, the final output, the aesthetic be better if you would use better cameras? The work is definitely interesting but if you see it it almost looks commonplace because these lowres files which we all make all the time, it’s the strong point in itself because you are thinking about yourself, your data and I think that the point of your personal interest in this?
It was my initial thought when I started it, I wanted it to be make as common as possible, and not use high tech things which not every one has, but using devices that everyone has.

- but then in a commodity which you want to sell, maybe , it might be worth experimenting with some more high quality ecuipment, maybe not even high quality images, but as something that is gonna sell. The way it is now its definitely an interesting project but there is no fine art value.

No, I haven’t thought about selling it yet, in any way because..

- it doesn’t seem like there is an emphasis on that, in the dutch art culture.

No , we are amore about why we do things and the conceptualization of projects, but not how to sell things at all, or if something is commercially valuable.

- it makes sense if you get a ton of money from the government for no reason.

Yes, we don’t really have to work at all

- im an American, I get shit from the government.
Haha. Yeah, with you it’s the opposite, you work more .. when I see your pictures I see more technical things and high quality, you can just see they are so stylized.. but then I miss the connection with, what am I looking at, what is the story

- I don’t know what im looking at. It almost feels.. it feels appropriate because im kind of.. whimsical and ah in the way I carry m,yself so I just ..pick something and run with it and the only way I really know how to run with it is to make glamour.. or glamourized images of it.. It’s not the way that it is, nothing actually is like that and it just feels..

So you just go with your gut?

- yes

But I do the same thing, but only different

- yeah but your gut is.. you understand your gut more than I understand mine I think

Well, you know its not always been like that, and it changes constantly.. there is a way to understand why you make things.. the way I always do it is.. For months I was so confused about what I was doing so I just wrote down all the things that I was working on. I write down my keywords on loose paper and try to apply to that loose papers of why im interested in those things, and how I apply that to projects etc and then you can see that certain why’s relate to multiple keywords and you can draw different connections, it’s a way to see the essence of your interests.

- I should do that
Yes you can do it, and that will help you clear your mind so you can look on the outside and see connections you couldn’t see before

- ill have to try it because I have never understood myself less than Ive had in the last half year, because when I first started doing the cows I was like.. it just felt right, it felt like my masterpiece. And it wasn’t because I was like obsessed with cows, but it was like it was the easthetic and the ability to apply it to something that isn’t already beautiful, and stylized, which is a naked woman, and it still kind of have the same ring to it, but why I show you that? I don’t know maybe just to see if I could. That’s maybe the most honest reason, that I could make beautiful stylized images of something that is not beautiful and styled. And then I could and now I don’t know what to do. And than I did it again, but why did I do it?

So your interested in making things that are seen as..

- making the grotesq ue beautiful, that’s a cliché thing to say, buti don’t mean it like that, but that is , that is it if you boil down to is im sure.

But you also have an interest in religion and

- I like the idea of taking something that is largely degraded and taking it to something that supposed to have spiritual significance. But I also really like.. but what bums me out.. because I got interested into shamamism. The way it was seen was like a joke. Shamanism is the srcade traditions in tribal non western societies, lost of places in Africa, any places that are untouched by civilization. In these small communities there is someone that is appointed the shaman and its usually like.. if your father was the shaman, that is passed on to you. And the shaman is the spiritual guide for the community, so if anyone is sick, if anyone has any problems at all you go and seek advice form the shaman, and he can usually like see.. the idea is that he can see your spiritual like defectiveness and in most shamanic communities they use pshychedlics, like for example native americans have shamans, they do these rituals, they take masculine, and they commute with the dead , if your mourning someone you commune with someone that you lost by taking this drug. Its that a normal person cant … its like a medium, like witchcraft its similar to that, you cant reach these things without this intermediary, and I like .. so we don’t do that. We don’t do that anymore, but then , so growing up I used to read these stories in high school, theseamerican short story fiction writers, mostly men, they were coming of age stories. A story about some nine year old boy, and he goes on this expeience and its what shapes him. And in shamanic societies itds the same when you are coming of age you have an experience with the shaman, and that’s what shapes you. But we don’t have anything like that anymore, you just grow up and your shaped by whatevers around you, so I like, I like this idea of when you have this spiritual icon, if you have .. ideally it would be the psychedelics but im not just going to be like take drugs people. That’s not a usefull way of communicating anything. But i want to pull these things in, because that’s what im interested in. coming of age stories, shamanism, pshychedlics and there being a figure head or a symbol that ties back to it. But I like it to be something everyone can relate to. And that’s why I think this cow is a nice symbol. Because everyone has a relationship with this image of a cow. Wether its just like yeah im buying chocolate and theres a cow on the package or I buy milk and a cow on the package or you live in a rural area and theres cows in you neighborhood, you know whatever it is.

Also like the god symbol

- yeah,a nd the hindu thing. But id like to get away from that a bit , because then I keep having to talk about it and im not really that interested in that.
In the hindu aspect?
- yeah, the reason they worshop the cows, or at least from what ive read, is that they.. they helped raise the family, the children. Because you get milk and you can eat from the cows. So its easier to have a family and have a community.

So you want to relate all these subjects together in your projects?

- yeah I haven’t figured out how I can relate them all together, I know why im interested in that but I cant really figure out how to communicate that. I guess maybe the coming of age perspective is maybe the most logical. It might be the easiest way to explain it because I think everyone can kind of understand that.

Maybe you can also relate it back to yourself, not maybe for the end results, but just for now. Find your own relationship with it.

- mine is that I didn’t have one of those coming of age experiences. Or.. im from a rich cultural heritage you know..

You can maybe find out for yourself why that is important.

- I don’t even know what that is, even so, my connection to all that is.. my whimsical curiosity, but its not something I feel even I have a grasp on myself. And that’s why im like oh let me just explore the images and then maybe ill find it, but im not sure its working. But we will see I haven’t really made a lot of images until now.
And it doesn’t happen from one day to the next, it comes gradually and then suddenly… and most of the time its someone else that notices it, because you are too deep inside your own mind. I always understand my work better if I talk about it to people.

- people who know you
yes, and they say yeah oh this relates to that and that, and im like oh I didn’t see that before

- im looking forward to actually sitting down, which is what I should be doing right now, is pairing these butt pictures with the dirty german with the pictures of joop the female pig.
He’s called joop?

- he tought it was a girl but then it was a boy. I meand he thought it was a boy and then it was a boy, or plagaahaha. Its girl, he tought it was a boy. It was hard to take pictures of that pig, a lot harder than I thought.
But its good that your trying to go to other animals now to see if..

- but the thing is im not that interested in this pig, you know. I don’t know.. they have their social significance and their image in society and im not going to be able to reshape that. Pigs do not have a good reputation, and I don’t think there is anything I can do..okay what is maybe a little bit interesting about the pig, is that maybe they are considerd as dirty creatures, but they are more intelligent and more emphatetic, their sexual… they are way richer than for example the cow. But their social significance.. they are not coming back from that. But maybe that’s alose interesting. Because I was talking to the dirty german yesterday and we were talking about my ex boyfriend who was really massaonistic. But I loved him anyway, and was kind of like okay let me just bend for you, ill just..

do everything for you

- yeah, and I didn’t even want to bother exploring feminism or calling myself a feminist because he didn’t like it, it was just too hard. It was easier to just have him as this dominant figure, its kind of the same way im looking at the pig. Like it would be too much to reshape the way people look at pigs. They call cops pigs, but that’s offensive to pigs, because what did the pig ever do? A cop is like you know .. they’ve killed morepeople than the terrorists.
Pigs id just doing what its doing, its nature.it is not doing anything wrong per se. its following its instinct.

- the pig actually like a dog, but a lot bigger than a dog. , so it hurt. It does the same thing dogs do. It gets near you and lays on his back for you to rub his belly.

Its like a giant pink bald dog. Im thinking about what your saying with how you were bedning everything for your boyfriend. Because I had the same relationship with one of my exes. But it was like extreme, I would do everything and he would do nothing and I was okay with that. It was ridiculous. But now im really.. now in allt he relationships after that I was so against that I would no nothing like that anymore. I have such a hard time trying to do something for someone because it feeld like im falling in a trap.

- its hard this feminist time were in, because at the same time yeah I would like to get paid the same amount as everyone else , or not get like leered at, but in relationships and with people, in socil relations its unpleasant for a woman to be there like im being treated shitty when its like im a rich white girl from America in my overpriced apartment, nothing has been bad for me. Other than these little things, but these little things are like I stubbed my toe today. They don’t effect me in the long run but I think maybe they do and its fucked up that we don’t even see it? I don’t know. Its so deep, but its too much to deal with. And its safer and feels more comfortable to be like just.. ill be the girl and you be the man, and lets just stick with these roles.

But maybe that somehow relates toi why your photographing cows.

- its like a sexual anxiety of identity, you can call that anything

yeha but you can work with that. The mindmap that I told you about. Wirte down loose keywords.. I wrote down loose keywords to start with… and now im trying to draw lines between those keywords, and im trying to find extra keyswords that I can add to that map. I have it on my wall the whole time and it keeps changing, getting smaller and sometimes bigger. And the why about those words. Why I find that interesting and what I do with that. But its hard to explore your own mind.

- I want to write some songs and be in a band that’s what I really want to do.
Just poor it all out

- yeah and just be an expressive rockstar in my shitty band.

When people ask me you know what do you do, the whole question annoys me. And I feel immediately, I feel.. annoyed and sad and I don’t want to answer, I don’t know. I am many things but also nothing.

- we are in a strange part of our lives though because everything before we knew exactly what was coming next. In high school you knew you were going to college. But after college it was like, what do I do now?
There are many, but also no options.

A: ….After high school, you know your gonna go to college, and maybe if your gonna be a doctor, you know after college your going to go to med school, or if you’ve been a ballet dancer, your gonna try and try and work for one of the big companies. but for us: oh, i’m like, an ambiguous artist. and I’m undefined and i don’t know why I do this, or for what purpose

Ara: Yeah, thats the question we really have to answer for ourselves this year. Why do we do it? and how we do it, because if we can not define it, we can not argue or defend are own projects. And that is my whole issue.

Femke has told me to do two different things with each of my projects. She suggested I describe them but once describe it very personally, and a second time, describe it very personally. And then I can allow other people to read that, and gauge how they react to each. And then i’ll be able to see what works best for that particular project, and see what does that mean to me. ugh….its exhausting.

A: it is exhausting. and it is difficult to really listen to yourself/myself talk about this stuff. When we were talking, early on, I was like “alright”, and then I get halfway into the schpeil, and I’m like “Dude, I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore”, and I don’t know why this always happens because I am not trying to deceive or anything but ti still ends up coming out not as i intended

Ara: I also have that when I discuss many times with different people about my photo book, every time it would come out completely different. And that wasn’t my intention, it is just that I get nervous and I forget why I was making this book in the first place. And that is not a good thing, You should really know why it is that you do something.

A: But….is it? I know that makes sense to know why you do something. it made sense to me when I first started making work, and making work that I liked. I’d go to critiques, and if kids didn’t know why they did it, or why it was interesting, than I i Didn’t wanna talk about the work anymore. But now I am like “I have no idea why”, and then I wonder…ok….maybe its ok to not understand why, or at least ok not to understand for a time….but it doesn’t feel ok.

Ara: No, it feels like I am really in the dark, making projects, and “yeah, this is ok…” but at the same time, I’m really feeling now that with Piet Zwart…I really like to work for like 6 months on one project, and with Piet Zwart I’ve already gone 3 projects in a few months, and am already working on 3 more, and I feel that my mind is overflowing. I also feel like it is all going to fast for my mind to keep up with. I always have trouble figuring out why I do things, but now I have to think twice as hard. Why am I doing this? Why that? And maybe this isn’t three projects, maybe its all one project. I don’t know

A: I have a feeling that after all of this is said and done, and after we’ve been giving all this information, and after all these different directions we’ve been pushed and pulled in, after all that, we will be able to take all of that and do what we do, which is spend a few months on one thing, and sure-we can apply some of these new little details, but really-I just want to spend months shooting something, and be able to spend hours looking at it before I have to talk about it. Now, I don’t even have time to look at something before I have to show it to someone. and I’m like “I just made it”.

Ara: I also-last week, I showed a clip, and I realized my mom was giving the finger to the camera. and I only watched like one minute of it before I showed it-and i thought to myself “ok, it looks fine”. I didn’t even have time to look at the whole clip. And if you are going to make a video, you have to look at the whole thing. But I didn’t have time for it! and thats not ok.

A: Its not what were used to. In my BFA, I looked at most of those images for months before I really, really showed them to anymore.

Ara: What we always did, is that we showed all of the pictures. we had to show everything from our contact sheets, and not only the ones that we had chosen. And every week, we would make a new selection from what we had shot.

A: We did that as well, but every other week since there was so many of us.

Ara: We also moved to every other week as we moved along. And we didn’t always see all the contact sheets because no one really wanted to show everything. Everyone was afraid to show all of their contact sheets, but I always thought it was interesting to see all of what other people had shot. Some people were like “No, thats my private material”, but I think it makes such a difference to see the whole.

A: I agree, because its not your private material. its your photoshoot, and you showed the photos, so the rejects are still just as much apart of that shoot.

Ara: It also depends on how much you shoot. Some people make 100s.

A: I do that now that I work digitally. I used to shoot with the mama 645 and each roll gave you between 12-14 frames, and i would usually shoot about 4 rolls. 5 if i was lucky. thats not a lot. but now, i shoot on average with in a 2-3 hour shoot, I make 350 pictures.

Ara: wow

A: yeah, but the thing is, then i have all these pictures and I think that I am not used to shooting this way- and i don’t even know how to look at them. thats the reason I couldn’t let go of my pictures of texas, and the stuff I did before I came here. I shot like 5000 images of cows. I was like there must be something here that I am missing, and maybe there wasn’t….because I never really found anything else.

Ara: but can’t you do something with those contact sheets?

A: I don’t know

Ara: we could meet with some of the other photographers. it would be nice maybe if you showed your contact sheets. For example, last week, there was one image you showed that I think was one of the best ones i’ve seen, and I think you just flipped right past it.

A: yeah, because for me it wasn’t perfect.

Ara: But also, other people reacted to that image as well.

A: yeah, but that is the thing is that you see the good in it, and I only see whats wrong with it. its this thing where I feel like I need someone, like Elektra and Nico, my two old friends, they are just so loving and supportive, and I can show them images that I think are total shit, and they always say something that is like “wow, i really needed to hear that to move forward with this”, and at school, I don’t feel like I really have people who understand me. Obviously, you, but even so, we haven’t sat down and looked at the work. But really, I hadn’t even made any until recently.

Ara: We should do that.

A: We should do that with the pig photos. The pig is hard. I knew what I wanted, but the pig wrapped down the curtain, and

Ara: he ripped down the curtain? haha

A: He ripped it down, so I’d have to paint he inside walls. haha, yeah. he was very rambunctious. I was very surprised. I kind of thought…I didn’t know what to expect really, but he was a lot rowdier than I would have expected. but so the image I wanted, I couldn’t get. and I also couldn’t get it because he wouldn’t cooperate, I couldn’t get low enough, and even if I could, it was so dusty and I can’t see.

Ara: thats how things go. especially with the first shoot. and especially with an animal. you have to see how that animal works with you.

A: i know. i just for some reason anticipated it being easier than the cows, and it just wasn’t

Ara: cause it smaller.

A: yeah

Ara: its not always the size that counts haha

A: haha are you trying to make a reference to your own tinniness ? haha

Ara: yeah

A: Anyway, lets talk about you. so this transition you made recently is that you are making videos, and before it was mostly

Ara: yes, I am making videos. Indeed

A: Your making videos, you made a box, and you are including your correspondence. So videos and correspondence. so its getting more personal I guess.

Ara: yeah, but in some ways its not different from what I used to do.

A: It is different though. Because before it was just images, time codes, locations, but this also includes the content. people, places, locations, and actual dialogue.

Ara: Yeah, but I am trying to figure out now what my personal character is with in my project. Like, is it about me, or do i just use myself as a model or a character

A: it feels like that right now. it feels like you are the model, but if you are going to make this transition where you are going to use your personal dialogue and vide. Video feels more intimate to me to begin with, because these little snap shots, they don’t really tell us much about you.

Ara: no

A: Because everyone has that moment “i’m sitting in front of my computer”, but this would start to become more autobiographical if you are going to use dialogue and the videos.

Ara: Yeah, I know. but it doesn't really bother me because it won’t be all of me. it will still only be just a small part of me. I was talking to femke about this, and she said you can use yourself as a character and as a different character in every project. it doesn’t have to be about me specifically as a person, but its about me as an example or a character. And I think thats also what I am doing because its not, to me, that its about me, but its an example of someone. Its not that I want to tell my story, its not really about the content. its about the fact that the content is that

A: I see that, but I think when people look at the work, they don’t know that. They don’t know that thats how you are approaching it.

Ara: i have to see if that is important.

A: and maybe it snot

Ara: yeah, maybe its not but its hard for me to figure out what is important.

A: yeah, but until you’ve shown the work to someone who doesn’t know it, or know you…yeah. I could probably take that comment and place it on myself, haha.

Ara: yeah, exactly. its a hard thing. because when things are a little bit personal, and than not. its trying to put words from your mind out there.

A: Your mind words out there.

Ara: I don’t know how to say it. My mind words.

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Interview new text for publication :

My Mind Words - Arantxa Gonlag
Interviewed by Allyson Anne Lamb

My background consists mostly out of photography, having completed a photography course at Willem de Kooning just over half year ago. Currently though, I’m being taught new skills that relate to the world of code, at the Piet Zwart Institute. I chose to learn this because my graduation project at Willem de Kooning involved photographing the surface of our digital world, the datacenters for example, where our data go through. I felt like I had to get deeper into it, instead of just photographing it. It felt like there was more than just the surface. So that’s why I decided I needed to get inside that world, work in the deeper level. But is it really necessary? For the past few months I’ve tried making projects by using code as the main process, but what comes out of that is still images based. Its not like I’m really into code per se, I don’t go into the technique of it. I use it. I use it to obtain images, or footage. The outcome is not that different than what I made previously, its still the same medium in fact, just a different process and a different aesthetic.
Working with this process makes a difference in multiple areas. Relating all this to one project I have made called ‘The Places in Between’ offers a good view into these differences. One of them is the generation of the material. I’ve tried to generate the same information I’m generating now, but then with my high tech camera. It was impossible to keep up with the speed of the data this way. The other is the relationship it creates with the audience. It was my initial thought when I started this particular project, that I wanted it to be make as common as possible, and not use high tech things which not every one has, but using devices that everyone has. The lowres files create a familiarity within the project to other people. It’s commonplace. It seems logical that I had to get deeper inside the code based world to retrieve this data faster and more efficient. But having completed this task last trimester, it becomes hard to keep my initial ‘reason’ as a motivating factor.
Understanding why I became interested, or, maybe obsessed could be the better word, into my own details the hardest part of a projects process, but maybe also the most essential one I need to answer in order to see what’s the next step for me. There is a way to understand why you make things.. its about nitpicking your brain. For months I was so confused about what I was doing I just wrote down all the things that I was working on. I write down my keywords on loose paper and try to apply that to loose papers of why I’m interested in those things, and how I apply that to projects etc. and then you can see that certain whys relate to multiple keywords and you can draw different connections. It’s a way to see the essence of your interests. It helps to clear your mind so you can look on the outside and see connections you couldn’t see before. And it doesn’t happen from one day to the next, it comes gradually and then suddenly… and most of the time it’s someone else that notices it, because you are too deep inside your own mind. I always understand my work better if I talk about it to people.

And then yes, for one moment, I think I know. I think I know why I make the choices that I do. I think I know the answer to my Big Why. But then I hear something new… a quote.. a song.. a comment.. inspiration hits me and I’m trying to find new connections again to my big Why.

I have my mind-map in the middle of my living room on the wall the whole time and it keeps changing, getting smaller and sometimes bigger, things are deleted, crossed out, rewritten or added. Why, why, why. It’s hard to explore your own mind. This might be the reason why I feel ‘attacked’ when people ask me what I do, whether I’m a photographer or a designer, the whole question annoys me. I feel annoyed and sad and I don’t want to answer, because I don’t know the answer. I am many things but also nothing. There are so many options, but what to choose. Sometimes I’m more this than that and sometimes it’s turned around. I have many interests, but what do they mean together? Do I have to pick one? Or just one for each project? But I want them all!
After college the world changes. We don’t follow a clear chosen path anymore; we have to choose our own directions. Why did I choose photography? I don’t even remember exactly. I just happened to stumble upon it. I guess there always was a need to express myself in some form. Working in graphic design before just didn’t meet my needs, this monotone one-dimensional space behind the interface made me miserable. But why did I find photography the medium for me, and why am I now working within a new process to gain images again? That’s the question I really have to answer for myself this year, in order to grasp the essence of my practice. Why do I do it? And how I do it, because if I cannot define it, I cannot argue or defend my own projects. And that is my whole issue. Defining my projects seems to be a daily routine, when I discuss many times with different people about my project, I catch myself every time describing the same project differently. That’s not my intention, it is just that I when discussing the project people say or point out things that make me confused as to what the essence was and I forget why I was making this project in the first place. Before at my previous school I saw this happen to classmates, but never to me. I always knew what I wanted and how I was going to complete it. At least I thought I did.
Now, It feels like I am in the dark, making projects. The Piet Zwart Institute has twisted my brain. Normally I like to immerse myself completely and work for a long time on one project. Only during graduation this was possible and even then we only had 3 months. I had said in my interview to Piet Zwart as well, I want to spend as much time as possible on one whole project, so I can get deeper into it and really find the essence. But now, I’ve already started/somewhat finished 3 projects in a few months, and am already working on 3 more. I feel that my mind is overflowing. It is all going to fast for my mind to keep up with. I always have trouble figuring out why I do things, but now I have to think twice as hard. Last week, I showed a clip to teachers, and I realized my mom was giving the finger to the camera. I had only watched like one minute of it before I showed it-and I thought to myself “ok, it looks fine”. I didn’t even have time to look at the whole clip. If you are going to make a video, you have to look at the whole thing, to really see it and continue with it. But I didn’t have time for it!
I am trying to figure out now what my personal character is within my projects. Is it about me, or do I just use myself as a model or a character. Right now I’m working on some projects that get even more personal than the previous projects I did here. But it doesn't really bother me because it won’t be all of me. It will still only be just a small part of me. I was talking to a teacher about this, and she said: “you can use yourself as a character and as a different character in every project.” And that made sense to me. It doesn’t have to be about me specifically as a person, but it’s about me as an example or a character. And I think that’s also what I am doing because the fact that its about me, is not important, I don’t mention names or say something personal about the project, but its an example of someone. Its not that I want to tell my story, it’s not really about the content. It’s about the fact that the content is there, the amount of it, the personal aura of it. I have to explore for myself if it’s important that people understand that its just a character, or that they have to fill in the blanks themselves. Understanding if this is important is part of finding the beginning of the answer to my Big Why. Maybe Sherry Turkle can shed some light on this as well in her book ‘The Second Self’: “my method shares the advantage of using ‘ideal types’ – examples that present reality in a form larger than life. Ideal types are usually constructed fictions. My examples are real. Yet they isolate and highlight particular aspects of the computers influence because I have chosen to write about people in computer cultures that amplify different aspects of the machines personality.”

It’s a hard thing. I always hear that my projects are personal, but to me that’s not always so. It is, but it isn’t. People are trying to put words from my mind out there.

Allyson: Your mind words out there.

I don’t know how to say it.. Yeah.. My mind words.

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FINAL INTERVIEW TEXT FOR PUBLICATION

ARTIST MAGAZINE presents:

“Mind Words” - Arantxa Gonlag Interviewed by Allyson Anne Lamb

Visual Artist Arantxa Gonlag has recently completed a Bachelor in Photography at the Willem de Kooning Acadamy. Her graduation project ‘Data Diary’ where she explores the infrastructure that is used by our digital data, which resulted in a photographed documentation book, has been exhibited in a number of locations. Currently she’s in her Master’s first year Media Design and Communication at the Piet Zwart Institute, where she has just completed one of her new projects ‘The Places in Between’. This project explores the depth of layers that is involved in viewing our digital data. By actually peeling of the layers within a book, you discover all the digital information regarding one day in her life.

Having completed a Multimedia Design course before already, Arantxa has been choosing different directions within her learning practice, though always staying within the visual media. With a lot going on already, we at ‘Artist Magazine’ were interested in understanding why she chose to continue studying after a completing a course in Photography successfully. Why at Piet Zwart, which is known for dealing with new technology from a technical perspective rather than a visual stand. Why this ‘move’ away from actual photography? And how does the new work relate to her previous project? What is the next step for her? Allyson Anne Lamb – her classmate – interviewed her for us about her reasoning in order to get an answer to these whys.

Arantxa: During the documentation process of ‘Data Diary’ I had a feeling that I kept myself too much on the surface. The more I discovered about the data world, the more interested I became in the depth of it. What is underneath the data centers? How do these servers work exactly? A simple explanation from my guides was not enough. I wanted to understand it from the inside out. This is why I chose to study further in an education where this knowledge is available. Now, I have just completed a new project that is almost completely generated by codes from inside the terminal of my laptop. Though that sounds really complicated, the result is mainly image based, just like my older work has always been. [EXAMPLE IMAGE]

I’m not really into code per se, I don’t go into the technique of it. I am a user. I use it to obtain images or footage. The outcome is not that different than what I have made previously, I’m still working within the same medium, with a different process and a different aesthetic.

Working with this process makes a difference in multiple areas. Especially with my latest project ‘The Places in Between’ this becomes obvious. One area is the generation of the material: I’ve tried to capture with my professional camera the digital information I’m generating digitally now. It was impossible to keep up with the speed of the digital data this way. The amount of the data that lightly goes on and on versus the heavy recorded files of high quality aesthetical images and footage. The other area is the relationship it creates with the audience: the recognizable aspect of the way the data is presented. My initial thought starting the project was that I wanted it to be as common as possible and use especially devices that everyone has access to. The low-res files create a familiarity within the project to other people.[EXAMPLE IMAGE] It seems logical that I had to get deeper inside the code based world to retrieve this data faster and more efficient. Data about me. Data about my daily life. My projects are generally not about me specifically as a person but they are about me as an example or as a certain character. They’re not really about the content, but about the fact that the content is there, the amount of it and the personal aura of it. I have yet to explore for myself if it is important that people understand that the persona is just a character, or that they can fill in the blanks themselves. Maybe a quote taken from Sherry Turkle’s book ‘The Second Self’ can make this clearer: “My method shares the advantage of using ‘ideal types’ – examples that present reality in a form larger than life. Ideal types are usually constructed fictions. My examples are real. Yet they isolate and highlight particular aspects of the computers influence because I have chosen to write about people in computer cultures that amplify different aspects of the machines personality.” Understanding why I became interested in, or better: obsessed by, my own data is the most essential question I need to answer in order to see what’s the next step for me. “Understanding your reasoning” is a project on its own. There is a way to understand why you make certain things; you have to be able to nit-pick your own brain. After completing ‘Data Diary’ I delved into a world which was far outside my own comfort zone of basic photography.

Learning new technologies and applying them to my projects got me inspired into a lot of different directions. I have a tendency wanting to know and do too much at once. This created some confusion as to what I was working on; at times I couldn’t remember why I was creating the projects in the first place. Preferably I like to immerse myself completely into one project at a time, perhaps spend several months on that particular project. In reality I have never been able to work in that way. Particularly now, with so much new techniques going on next to my own practice, I’m doing multiple things at once the entire time. For me, staying with essence of a project has always been a hard thing, but now I have to think twice as hard, and thrice as fast.

Writing down all the things I was working on at the time helped me. I wrote down my keywords on loose pieces of paper and tried to apply these to loose pieces of paper on which I wrote why I’m interested in those things. Then I applied these motivations to my old and new projects. [EXAMPLE IMAGE] I created a mind-map of my mind. Seeing these keyword papers on their own, I could see certain whys relate to multiple keywords and I could draw different connections. In this way I was able to see the essence of my interests. An adjustable mind-map helps to clear your mind so you can look from the outside and see connections you couldn’t see before. This is a good method, but the revelations don’t happen from one day to the next, it can come gradually but also suddenly. It could happen that someone else notices something, because most of the time you are too involved. It’s your own mind after all.

And then yes, for one moment: I think I know. I think I know why I make the choices that I do. I think I know the answer to my Big Why: Why do I make my projects? But then I hear something new: a quote, a song, even a comment. Inspiration hits me and I’m trying to find new connections and reasons again to my Big Why.

I have my mind-map in the middle of my living room wall. The mind-map is always there and it keeps changing: becoming smaller and sometimes bigger, pieces are deleted, crossed out, rewritten and/or added. Why, why, why. Is this perhaps the reason I cannot define myself as a particular artist? I’m not a photographer, I’m not a designer, I’m not only about fine arts. I am many things but also nothing. There are so many options, but what to choose. Sometimes I’m more this than that and sometimes it’s conversely. I have many interests, but what do they mean together? Do I have to pick one for everything, or just one for each project individually? I want them all.

After high school the world changes. We don’t follow a clear chosen path anymore; we have to choose our own directions. Why did I choose photography? I don’t even remember exactly. I just happened to stumble upon it. There always was a need to express myself in some form. Working in graphic design before just didn’t meet my needs, the monotone one-dimensional space behind the interface made me miserable. But why did I find photography the medium for me, and why am I now working within a new process to gain images again? Do I have to answer this question in order to grasp the essence of my practice? If I cannot define it, I cannot argue or defend my own projects. When I discuss my project with different people, I catch myself describing the same project differently every time. This is not my intention, but when I discuss the project with others they might say or point out things that make me confused as to what the essence was. Sometimes this makes me forget why I was making this project at all. Back when learning photography I always knew what I wanted and how I was going to complete it. At least I thought I did. The more I learn, the more I realize nothing stays. I might be a photographer today, and a designer tomorrow, but who knows what I will be the day after that? My interests are always in movement. What I want to create now will perhaps bore me in a few years, months, or even days. Media will always be of interest to me, and as it evolves, my thoughts and feelings about media will evolve with it. Thinking about the thin red line that is always lurking in the back of my projects will keep me motivated. Looking at my own mind thoughts, mind words, and seeing how they evolve over time helps me to see the overall connection. As soon as I lose my belief in my projects as a whole, they will crumble down. Why, why, why. My mind words.

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