Page Title: Text on (in) Practice

Text On (in) Practice

This text is a result of a practice I call wall writing (although, I’d like to come up with a better name). In this practice, large rolls of paper (2 meters wide) are rolled out to just above my head, and then stuck onto the wall in my living space. On these scrolls of paper I practice a number of things:

free writing, jotting down ideas on the go, drawing images from current work/future work, writing in shapes/word art, long form essayistic writing, fears/ worries, lyrics, recurring questions, cataloging feedback, drawing shapes of narratives etc.

All of these activities come together to form a kind of map.

Map making as a way of tracking the progression of thoughts, of eliciting connections, of moving whilst making, of making non-digital work, forming images through word amongst and non-conventional narrative shapes. This act stems from a desire-cum-frustration to reveal the circuitry/wiring between ideas I’ve seen. A process-practice with means to an end (a function in other words) but also a form of simple self expression in and of itself. The dual nature of this act is important. More on this later.

I am currently only writing in black ink on white paper. I use specific pens which have a soft felt tip, with an inky feel. I stand, squat or sit on the floor (being physically dynamic is important to my personal experience and it of course has an effect on the output). I have not cut the paper yet, but I do intend for there to be an end to this wall writing. Then I will begin another. I would like to create a rolling paper machine from hand, inspired by the artist Van Neistat, he replied to an email I sent him and told me how to make it.

I am editing but showing the edits, making them visible (so far…). When if I begin chastising myself on the page I will edit (leaving the edit visible) suggesting a more open, accepting approach*. This is not just for kindness sake, although there is nothing wrong with kindness (kin-ness, Harraway), the gates and borders that come as a result of chastising, are someone else’s standards I have ingested. It is significant to resists this, as this is about making my own internal standards of excellence (Tom Sachs).

*Interestingly, my course mate Yalou, suggested that the polishing of a document perhaps feels linear (maybe a better word is final? A faux finality?).

What are ‘your own internal standards of excellence’? These are protocols to help me function as an artist, these are to be ‘fostered’ (Sachs) through the practice. What are the details you attend to? What is that, that moves you in an image? What is your aesthetic standard? What does engagement mean? And…these questions are the seedlings, or the first stitch - to act as lily pads, to leap from. Not a definitive list, it’s about movement.

A standard I have been exploring through the mapping (and more), is developing a specific approach to passage of time (sculpting of time) in my work. The struggle here has always been this. Stories, and I mean ‘once upon a time there was a dog’ kind of stories, Chekov, Saunders, Bilge-Ceylan etc, you know the ones with the beautiful simple (simplicity, simplicity, simplicity - Einstein or maybe (really probably) his wife) structure, the ones that follow a character as they trudge along a roman road of thought and action. Have acted as a great bird, with great soft wings, to lay down upon and now (see!) life is quite beautiful. In other words they have been some of my most vital aids. The struggle here, is the natural rebellion I feel against this synthetic/taxidermic relationship to the passage of time, it’s fundamentally retrospective. One brick does not have to lead to the next (remember when it was just sand? Remember it’ll become sand once again).There is a political and philosophical resistance (‘fuck linear time, it’s poison’ said the artist Tooth just last week). But, boy does it feel good to travel In The Cart* of Father Time.

With this in mind, and slightly connected is another idea. I am trying to remove how central the finished work is to my practice, these works are destinations where I may arrive at, I circle, I return to but they are contained and do not exist without the roads that led me there, and the roads that don't. And this map making - it helps to stop thinking in a 'I need to make a thing' head space. (To be continued).

I will write a list of my currently active influences:

Tom Sachs (for his processes and ways of working, specifically 10 bullets)
Grayson Perry's (the way he uses mapping and cartography in his illustration specifically thinking of one I saw in a gallery in Eastbourne, its called Map of Nowhere)
Olga Tokarczuk (her writing from above, the way she uses maps in her novels and images - non linear, and not just associative, particularly in Book of Jacobs). Her ideas around truth (“The truth is like a gnarled tree, made up of many layers that are twisted all around each other. Some layers holding others inside them, and sometimes being held. The truth is something that can be expressed in many tales, for it is like that garden The Sages entered in which each of them saw something else.”)
Pina Baush (for movement, for image)
Sayaka Murata (for their way of self expression and unapologetic personal standards of absurdity, mainly in her interviews)
Iain Mcgilchrist's (their insistence on mystery and the throuroughness/depth of thought)
Karl Diesseroth (for his weaving analogy, and he web-like perspective on his experience as a neuroscientist and psychiatrist)
Tarkovsky (it is not linear for sure, nor is it Freudian or Associative but he makes his own perspective).
There is also currently a strong influence of medieval word art, Cihad has also shown me some examples from historical Arabic word art.
George Saunders, particularly his book on writing: A Swim in The Pond In the Rain. What he has to say about narrative, and also the way he writes about it.
Kendrick Lamar's way of telling stories, specifically in a track called FEAR. It is a story which takes place across generations, with the character of Fear being the link between all the stories.
Andre 3000’s verse on Blonde (Solo (Reprise), the stream of consciousness, flipping along time).
In general storytelling in music, most present in hip-hop and folk music has always been a key influence - if I start writing musicians I will never stop, I mean it.
Mamoru Oshii the way they deal with moments in their films.
Julie Mehretu, for the way they work with lines and general visual approach, see her album cover for Pharaoh Sanders and Floating points, as well as Congress and her show title 'A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF EVERYTHING AND NOTHING’.

I am pulled along by story and "beauty" and function (one perspective on the wall writings, is perhaps I am attempting to understand ways in which they way I think functions or can function?). Function, this is an important concept in my practice - a relatively new concept. I have begun to understand and perhaps even respect the part of myself that likes to make and study systems, to be pulled into understanding how something functions - what the processes are, under the hood.

With all this said. I also deeply respect mystery (the hidden passage to the work) and to not look at the finger pointing to the moon, but the moon itself. It's a balance of creating processes and understanding how my practice functions whilst also remembering that not everything is understood or reduced down to functions, that there is always a slither of the infinite that surrounds a work which moves me. Yet, although you want to resist a binary, you have to bring a standard of logic to the practice. Working to code (Sachs).

It is important to note that my desire to create protocols and standards for myself as an artist came from a commitment to the profession of being an artist. This practice is something which is of course important to me on a personal level, 'the basement that allows the rest of my life to function' (interview from Louisiana, writer of the postcard, Anne Berest) but also this is what I will do for my work and there is something very serious about this. I have to find a way to make it stable, something that I can come to every day. I need some kind of map then.

NOTES

Pre-notes

Remember title: text on (in) practice

(these notes (so far) were written whilst I was ill, and stayed ay home for a whole day - probably important to note this. However what preceded this was 4 weeks of intense work/play).

Perhaps I want to talk about a geological, multiplicity in our approach to narrative.

What do interactions brings? The writings on the wall are intuitive, and then immediately concrete (Rosella), but then perhaps it's more like suddenly seeing a town on a map. Given a blank piece of paper, and then you see the roads and put them in. Yes indeed it is 'concrete' to an extent. So is it really about mapping, rather then layering. How important is the place of words?

The history of oral storytelling (aural for those listening). The point being introduce, to loosen, to entice, to hold, to open, to create a space, to wonder why, to be in the presence of something that is alive, to play with hypnosis, to practice witchcraft. I want to bring in a craft practice, a physical practice, I would like to play with the idea of function through a physical craft. Why should I be binary about the physical/digital.

Though you want to resist a binary, you have to bring a standard of logic to the practice. Working to code.

So, what do you have? I have writing, narrative, image, sound, animation, screens, voice performers (or actors), performance, written text, subtitling, credits, script.

What do I want to explore having or play with? Some physically built element, something 'live', something 'reactive', multiple screens, promenade (i.e. movement of the audience), music, drawing (ref. gothic/medieval), cartography, sets, theatre approaches, duration, performer on screen, smell, smoke, fog, steam, vibration.

Work on my weaknesses: consistency, archiving

The work I make (in the end) is not intellectually driven, although thinking deeply, to engage deeply is a part of the practice. In the end, its a hidden passage to the work. So this can be quite daunting, although I think it's always been that way. That said, I don't have to disinclude it - perhaps not centre it.

I've put objects on the paper, a photograph, a token.

“The truth is like a gnarled tree, made up of many layers that are twisted all around each other. Some layers holding others inside them, and sometimes being held. The truth is something that can be expressed in many tales, for it is like that garden The Sages entered in which each of them saw something else.” Book of Jacobs

AND, WHAT ON CHARACTER? (ERGO YENTE)

“This is the fulfilment of a process begun somewhere in Padolia. One old winter, when her great tempestuous love, the fruit of which is Samuel, took its unjustly short place - a duration of the blink of an eye amongst all the events on this flat stage. Yet, Yente sees this order, this accord. Yente, whose body is slowly turning into crystal on Chlulyounta cave. The entrance to it is now almost competley over grown with black lilac, their umbles filled with lush, ripe berries already fallen to the ground…." Book of Jacob

TO THE STUDIO

"The *lab is a place that allows us to make interesting mistakes as fast as possible." Bruno Latour

*for sake of being specific and consistent, let us swap lab for studio.

Notes from Y and A

Rich, use of precise vocabulary. If you are a native speaker, you may be floral - but the maker isn't

Conversation with herself…

Somehow this text is the result of the wall writing.

I have some doubts, whether …forming images through word - how does it look? How do we define it? Through images…we need the mental image. Using more visuals in the text, and maybe more definition? Being more precise with how these images and words look.

Forming images through words - it would be great to see this. Present this.

The maker wants to reach for non-linear telling, this could mean it becomes chaotic and hard to follow. How is the maker going to present this? How can one create, and oceanic or geological experience of narrative - in that nature is at once complex and simple.

‘This act stems from …’. I want to know more about the duality, and how do you imagine this END. What is the ‘process-practice’ what is this END. Do the wall writing when the maker finishes a project? Define what the end is, define your terms (process-practice etc.)

Is the process a piece, is it for the audience or the maker? Is this for the audience?

Maybe she doesn’t feel a necessity to share this - but people want an outcome? Will there be an outcome?

Will this paper, become something and presented by her? Or will it be up to the audience to make their ‘own way’.

It feels like this is very intimate.

It’s engaged with the maker herself?

Maybe she wants to define if she wants to share something?

Is it about the piece or presenting this way of making?

‘I stand, squat, sit’ - why is it so important? What about the physical, they want to know more. There is a performative aspect. Why do you feel the need? Physical space. What is important about the standing and squatting?

Chastising. This is interesting to Aitana. The censorship - she thought about being a teenager and writing diaries. She wanted to hide it. It is interesting, to show the edits as a process. It looked like an acceptance or curiosity of the self censorship.

“Every step needs to be visible” (Yalou) or “Or the knowledge” (Aitana)

There seems like a visible standards, between internal and external standards.

The struggle between, liner non linear

There is no polishing on the page, and polishing feels linear (Yalou) Does polishing feel linear?

It’s complex non-linear for the reader, and how do you still be kind to the reader? How to be kind to the reader?

Aitana keeps mentioning fight…

Is there a need to embrace linearty. There is something about loving linear stories. Having several linear stories, you can play with the linear - and appropriate what a linear story is. Is it really about multiplicity? Or some other term, we are working with geological, oceanic...

Maybe she needs to relax a little and embrace (Aitana) and accept the linearly a bit. How can you also embrace the linearity?

Perhaps combing the linearity of multiple could be a way to work. Working with multiple linearities. Working with multiple linearitities?

Reference, Jacqueline Wilson.

Forming images through words. And images.

‘Allows us to fall into it’ Yalou

By writing and reading through language, how can the language act the visual imagery. Only the sound and the words, your imagination creates images.

Producing texts, through drawing. Every form of text, and visualizations are on the big paper. These different ways of text and visualizing might make in non-linear. All bundled in one. All bundled in one

What do you mean non-linear? Are there other concepts that the maker could use? Is she also talking about non-conventional, perhaps there are other words she can search for or see. Again, go deeper on the term.

Yalou is definitely interested in the references, and I would like to see them. Right now its a bit ungrabbable that part. More visualisation of the referneces.

Towards the end, after the reference. I am pulled along by story and beauty and function.

The function allows me to think about wall writing. The maker seems to be interested in how things work and the use of the paper (i.e. the actions). How do things work? This is what the wall writing also seems to be, how do things work?

Aitana wonders if this something that the artist would be interested in sharing with someone or not at all.

Are there parts she could use for a more open practice. For her it doesn’t look very open. Is this an open practice?

Yalou asks whether it is not open because we haven’t seen, or because its new, or because the maker doesn’t want you to see. But then goes back to the machine? They want to see the machine, could I perhaps draw this?

Talk at Rijks

Stories tell stories, whose story is writing the legal documents?

We is slippery, in a good way.

Editing, a series of decisions on what you are writing.

"novels in voice" - who said this?