Prompt sam freewriting

(1)

What is good? What is good art? How do we know something is quality? Not quality in regards of the qualities it has, but rather how do we define quality, how do we use it as an indicator, and criteria for judgment, understanding, likes and dislikes? Quality is a word that recurs frequently in our lexicons, even more so in the lexicon of the artist or art viewer. It can take on meanings, such as a 'emotional quality' or 'rough around the edges' but these again refer to the specific characteristic qualities of a specific (or individual) piece of work, thing, existence. Again, I am not concerned with these qualities but rather concerned in understanding what we as a people of art makers or art viewers have seemingly constructed out of institutional and experiential understanding of 'good'.

We need good, we need bad. The binary existence of these two allows for the construction of art, stories, characters, feelings, thoughts, right, wrong, love, hate. Opening a textbook on photography, painting, sculpture, wood working and so on, we are immediately faced with the apparent 'fact' of what is a 'good' or what constitutes a 'quality' photograph, painting, sculpture, chair, etc. Through generations of craftsmen and women a certain status quo has provided the artists and art viewers of today with the information to make something of quality. This quality is one of try and true, a recipe of sorts, like grandma's famous tomato soup, or the inevitably of death and taxes. Following the rule of thirds, for example, allows for a quality composition in a photograph. The recipes will further be elaborated upon, adding and touching upon every other technical element of a practice or medium, who it can be appropriated, taken advantage of and controlled for this quality, for the good photograph.

We take these guidelines and apply them in our daily lives, these guidelines are also reinforced through media, entertainment even conversation as a means to structure our opinions or as a means to be heard. These structures are useful in many ways, yet don't take us toward an understanding of quality. Quality does not want to exist in these binary terms, quality in art even less so. Quality tends to become bland, almost the opposite of what quality aims to do when strict rules of composition, exposure and technique are followed, in photography for example. The textbook definition of quality leads to exactly what many artists and art spectators hate the most, the general, the common, the seen-before, the staged, the logical, the boring, the obvious. The 'ready in 15-minutes' family portrait from the Wal-Mart photo 'studio'. The quality we are more interested in, is the the opposite of these things, the unique, the peculiar, the improvised.

(2)

2:31 p.m. 0 and 1, yes and no, high and low, I begin my writing now to show, a reflection on these things I do and do not know. And on that (k)no(w)te, that which I do know, is very likely not so, there is more to room to grow, to add depth, nuance to truly make the light bulb in my head glow. The things I do not know, it could be that I already do, but do not know it (myself) yet, the opportunity has not been put to the test.

2:37 p.m.

2:38 p.m. Whatever it's cause (although I believe modernity to be the overarching engine here) it seems everywhere I go, look, read, write(?), do & think, categories form. They form in a binary manner. They help to categorizze the categories. Simplification is a fantastic thing and I love it. Everything I do, I want it to be simplified and optimized. It reminds me of the Gus van Sant short film The Discipline of DE. When something is beyond my comprehension, seemingly out of the reach of execution or even better 'realization' (execution sounds so....fatal....) I become frustrated, I am immediately reacquainted with the binary. Simple and difficult. Difficult rears its ugly (yet beautiful?) head. The difficult is the reason I may need or want the simple. The two are reliant upon one another, cannot exist without the other breathing down their neck.

2:45 p.m. Trying to develop this thought in connection to myself as an artist. Need a moment to stare out the window aimlessly.

2:47 p.m. Chaos and order, yin and yang. The binaries have long existed, been documented, philosophized upon, spread to the masses through masses, written down, discussed, debated, used, abused, appropriated, re-apppropriated. The binaries are not an issue. They do not necessarily symbolize anything more than what they are, words? Concepts? Ideas? Sometimes, actions. What we do with them, seems to hold another implication.

Documentary and fiction seem to be the guiding opposites, serving as bumpers like in bowling alley for a child, or on a car for an adult. Room to make mistakes within them. Or rather, room to explore, to correct these mistakes. Correction? This is not a facility, I fall back on ugly terms, this is not a jail. Exploration rather, to explore what exists within the societally simplified poles. Between black and white there are endless shades of grey! Not just 50, endlessly more than just 'a' whiter shade of grey. But where is this gray space, and how can one add contrast to it, allowing things to pop and not melt into a sea of vague vastness.

2:59 p.m. Finding someway to extend the analytical approach of a documentary to reach the outstretched tentacles of the fictional, the staged is a task achieved by many filmmakers and artists alike. I think of the fantastic work of the late, great Abbas Kiarostami. Who manged to not only have these tentacles touch, but get completely wrapped in one another, tangled to a point of a total messiness, difficulty magnified!

3:09 p.m. intermezzo. Natasha came by and we spoke for a few minutes.

3:10 p.m. Saying out loud what I'm doing here on this page is interesting, since I don't quite know myself. Somehow this itself intrigues me. Writing without a purpose, yet the purpose is that notion itself. I struggle with this, as I have noticed over the last several years of filmmaking and artistry life. Especially since starting to study here at Piet Zwart Institute. Structure and agency. I notice these two like crazy. I think I was designed, fabricated, given birth to a life reliant on pragmatic and logical structure. Surely this is the case in todays society but also in terms of my family. Having the agency to exist, freely outside of this is something I continually wrestle with. Something that I feel is necessary to commit myself to. But do I? I think on these things again simply, but structure does not exist without the agency. The area in between is exactly where I am, where I should be.

3:15 p.m. Natasha has mentioned a truly fascinating short work by Georges Perec. Something I shall not sleep on. Must print it out and read asap. This can be applied to and maybe even serve as source material for a current project.

3:15 p.m. Forget about my self doubting metaphysical thoughts for a second. These binaries in relation to my practice are like the prompt I was so desperately seeking for about an hour ago. We understand thing like male-female, but know there is more. We understand things like North and south, knowing there is a whole world in between. There is a world to discover, to represent but also to de-construct and re-construct. To do so one must exist within this grey area and pose the questions. How does one live? What does one do? What emotions, things, happenings come from human life? Nothing is so simple as 0 and 1, yet it is also so simple. That's all there is. and thespaceinbetween.