Just had my Guidance Committee meeting with Linda Montano - Studio Advisor & Laura Gonzales - Research Advisor. I am so grateful to have these two amazing women supporting my process this year. I feel that they are both totally invested in the project I'm embarking on. They are both incredible artists with such a wealth of experience & accomplishments & I am honored that they take such a sincere interest in my work.
Our meeting lasted about 40 minutes & they had many extremely relevant suggestions for me as I start out into the coming semester.
The studio work will take the form of a journal - with entries made in writing, video studies, photographs, sketches, collected objects, sound recordings.
The subject is the Self-as-medium for art - the raw material being the body & psyche.
I am stripping away everything superfluous in order to begin.
As the physical aspect of the work is so internal, I need a voice with which to express it.
I discussed with Laura & Linda the idea of being able to regard the work through a number of different "lenses" ... this is something Barbara Bolt talked about in her talk in Berlin this Summer - I was quite struck by the idea as a useful tool for my writing this year. To look at my physical process through a variety of philosophical, political, spiritual, cultural lenses ... Laura defined my idea as a "kaleidescope".
The subject matter of the courses I took at the Berlin Summer Residency could not have been more appropriate for my project ... they all dealt with aspects of the self & the body in different ways.
Wolfgang Sueztl's philosophy discussion series on concepts of "Skin", Jean Marie Casbarian's lecture & assignment course on issues of "Invisibility" & Lynn Book's practical, cerebral, physical sweat-bath of body & voice in "Intensities" all opened up avenues for further exploration that are precisely targeted towards my objectives.
However .. I must say - I am quite relieved to be in the peace & quiet of the Nottinghamshire countryside for a while with no demanding schedule.
In Berlin I was totally in exhaustion mode for most of the time!
RAW - (Material) is the title for a series of video & performance vignettes I will create as journal entries.
Two have already been created:
"RAW - (Material) #0: Ground Zero" was my opening performance for the Loose Affairs Transart group show at Somos gallery in Berlin. Here, I asked the audience to assist me in a ritual to strip down everything superfluous - including my clothes & hair.
"RAW - (Material) #1: Sand" is the body in response to warm sand - with videographer Stephanie Reid.
Now it's time to do some reading!
