SYP assessment submission

Hi. It looks like this is it. It’s finished. A couple of years late, I use this summer to continue onwards and map and fold along.

I turn the functional, sans images, PDF portfolio of assignment 5 into a document that houses: visuals and links to new work as engagement and resolution; how SYP can function as Practice as Research and to include the course items requested to demonstrate aims and objectives.

(There are also a number of newly written blog posts, referenced below, perhaps the most significant one in terms of review this one here: https://resbowgh.wordpress.com/2022/10/12/reflections-on-the-module-at-submission)

I attach the Portfolio as object as practice here too as reference point (see below). As with the research dissertation I address the reader to help orientation, navigation, comprehension (and to explore the boundaries of each).

I am also including the linked blogs that I highlight (as requested) as addressing the Learning Outcomes (see below).

[I have started to use the original name of this blog again, resbowgh.wordpress.com, intending to revert to a free blog again and releasing the close-open address]

Portfolio as practice as object, two collages created in conversation with the text to image AI Midjourney

Notes (ahead)

… of a lengthy portfolio document. The document that follows is composed of three parts: a visual one, a reflective one and the one addressing the course items, the assessment terms, interwoven. The Table of Contents that follows overleaf tries to demarcate these parts sufficiently.

It (and so does this prelude too) contains a series of reflections: one, at the point of module end, early April, the very last day of the module. I return to this and find I do not want to alter it. It is reflective and prospective. I am at the point that is beyond the course, the assessment submission six months after course end, the latest possible. Unlike earlier courses this does not conclude quite so easily: sustain as demand at odds with conclude. I record another course reflection as audio file, realise that it is extra, I merely place it into a concluding blog post and place the original reflection, as text document in the respective g-drive folder. It still stands.

I have tried to address this circumstance of a somewhat odd temporality carefully, wishing to guide you through the extent and nuance of the portfolio, as per instruction, imagining you do not know much of my work. Visually, the text thus has two colours: what has been written by course end appears in black, automatic, all amended and added at submission (dark grey, custom). The course items display in that Word standard font Calibri, the PaR elements in Helvetica Neue, the Visual elements headers, as all others in Gill Sans, the visual work text descriptors like Avenir (Light).

As portfolio, this document contains possibly more text than those of my peers. Given my Research dissertation and a practice that is also research, this probably doesn’t surprise (even if it remains unusual). I link to several related blog posts, the submission also contains the blog posts mapped to Learning Objectives (and I include the Project Plan in the written submission folder on the g-drive as well as here). The reasoning for this is outlined in the first reflection, Practice as Research in Engagement 0. For the first module in some time, this final one also has a sparser online learning log again, I discover that much writing took place in private notes, Facebook posts and in the drafts to what becomes this portfolio.The first two images result from a conversation with the text prompt to image AI, Midjourney, an exploration in time-based, 16:9, notions of portfolio as practice and object.

Blog posts to Learning Outcomes

LO1 Demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of the theoretical context(s) relevant to your practice and have an understanding of the professional dimensions that underpin a successful artistic practice

LO2 Present a coherent and resolved piece or body of work, making creative presentation decisions that complement your subject and/or your artistic strategies

LO3 Identify which areas of the creative arts industry are relevant to you and created potential links for Networking

LO4 Independently disseminate your work by establishing relationships and networks with audiences

LO5 Confidently engage a public audience with your work and analyse, review and evaluate information relevant to your practice, identifying opportunities for professional and creative development

The portfolio of my Sustain Your Practice assessment

is here:

syp-a5-portfolio_submission-1310_reduced-sizeDownload

discomfort (again and onwards)

I have an extended set of notes (perhaps even a personal archive?) around the notion of discomfort, concern, wariness, and perhaps even repulsion, towards the work, my work, and the processes, my processes.

I have also still an open blog post item to write, for Learning Outcome 5:

Confidently engage a public audience with your work and analyse, review and evaluate information relevant to your practice, identifying opportunities for professional and creative development

At this point, the work around discomfort does not coalesce sufficiently to form a text contribution, and for assessment it also doesn’t need to. Instead, I want to turn to a closing discussion from the last tutorial in early April that raised precisely this and how it situates within the core and concept of the work. I then turn briefly, underneath to a short feedback sequence in response to the Research practice video that Rachel and I recorded for coursework and published in August on the #weareoca blog, which points, this time anonymously, towards similar affective responses (perhaps even atmospheres) around my work. (I will return to this).

Here a short review segment from the tutorial:

Tutorial report 5, 6/4/21

The college blog published a piece written by myself and Rachel, following Rachel’s request to interview me for a case study in one of the new CA Stage 3 course materials. We then excerpted and framed the video. Despite a few hickups with viewing permissions, it got a series of circulations and yielded a fair bit of private and public responses. I find a snippet of a short conversation beneath it, from people I do not know. I am startled (feel misunderstood) at first and then delight, I respond but don’t receive anything further. Both responses capture well the discomfort that I have frequently encountered in far more related contexts.

screengrab from comments of the blog post referenced above

SYP tutor reports 3-5 reviewed and added

A few weeks ago I made a point to list the blog posts I still wanted to add and explore. I remain slow with these, as often I question the role of the blog (it no longer has much audience, my own writing sits elsewhere, the submission documents contains most that is important).

Today is my last day of working on the documents for submission, all is ticked off except for the larger conceptual items – discomfort, an expectant archive, and a toolbox/forward look. They are in process, referenced, and perhaps taken to the point of conclusion they will be for the actual module.

I have spent (as always) a fair bit of work on the assessment, again more than necessary, and yet this, as before has been useful: to shape the material in a way that it will facilitate a next for me beyond what the assessors read. The practice as research is held within it, notably it functions as an expectant archive in how it contains and organises the work that is SYP in text and visual. It is documentation in the sense that I want to use documentation as work, as performance, as institutional engagement and as contemporary practice that holds in relation to its respective audiences.

I read through the final three tutor reports, all from the last eight weeks of module (late January to early April). I marvel, as before, as them as record of sustained and engaged conversations, tutorials, and what they hold of that conversation but also how they each point forward and summarise – logistics, concepts, methods, outlook and practice.

Each is rich with both the unfolding material – the works around the fir hide in particular, the shaping of the materials that will become part of the Wander Wide Web exhibition a few months later, and exploring, examining and evaluating carefully, the different forms of engagement, messages, publicness in which I circulate the A/Folders, the visual works, the see (through) events.

Let me insert a couple of short sections here from across the three in which we discuss the engagement modalities and what they yield and how they can be shaped and understood:

On testing the a/folder zines:

Tutorial report 3, 26/1/2021

Planning the see (through) events after a test run with my crit group:

Tutorial report 3, 26/1/2021

Direct messages as part of the circulation of work:

Tutor report 4, 23/3/21

Overall feedback and summary after the event series:

Tutor report 4, 23/3/21

Reviewing the events and feedback/critique

Tutor report 5, 6/4/21

Please find below the three tutor reports (3-5) uploaded.

gesa_helms_sypa3Download
gesa_helms_sypa4Download

gesa_helms_sypa5Download

Reflections on the module at assessment

I record on the afternoon of October 12 an audio message to reflect, to direct first, then reflect. I realise it is extra: too long (the direction element seems unasked for). I realise too that as submission this reflection is where it is at: it stands, at course end. I create a blog post that contains too the audio and names the six months since course end, I add it to the Learning Outcomes document too and there it is: reflected, and reflected again.

Listen to the longer (12 mins) audio file here:

The reflection post from early April is copied below:

It’s time. There is one week left on this, I take the laptop and my notes to the Trafo, to write one more time in site. I hadn’t taken it much since last summer, now it is warm enough for it again.

It is the last project that my dad will have taken part in. That he commented on, the progress of which he took keen interest in.

I talk about this in the see (through) 2 conversation; as opening and then later too around ‘not making memory’; to John’s question if I knew I was going to archive when I was making the work, and no, I didn’t, it became bigger and more generative than that. 

In see (through) 2 I talked about archiving and participation, of the bridging projects I started as such in early summer 2021, and of how these supported the transitions of that time. And that was good.

They also sit as ‘new works’ in SYP, alongside the pinhole images and the New Years’ Day expanded meadow, but much quieter so, or rather: not concluded yet (other than generating insight about site, archiving and participation.

I had started SYP in earnest with a view of archiving the site, of writing myself out of the site. Neither is quite possible as any engagement creates yet new insights, objects, relationships and questions.

At the end of BoW/Research SYP was configured as developing a mobile toolbox of my artistic practice; mobile, to be tested in different sites and contexts as to what these methods of site-based, contact investigations as practice as research could yield.

Such toolbox would seek other sites by means of residency applications and other forms of networking. I did not travel, though I applied for a digital one with Museum of Loss and Renewal; I also signed up for a Poetry School course on Expanded Screenwriting as Poetry. I furthermore investigated a future residency at Dundalk, Co Louth, Ireland to collaborate with one of my close artist contacts of the past year, Susan Farrelly. Travel remained complex throughout the duration of this module, but now seems a little easier and at least I am moving fairly freely between Glasgow and NW Germany again.

The project plan, also following the first tutorial, became refined around three engagement strands (a simple distribution process of instructive self-print PDF zines; a series of workshops; and also to explore circulating, through sales, some of the many objects that resulted from the practice as research. 

The first tutorial also pointed towards conducting SYP as research: of exploring the means of engagement as drawing/contact and thus of testing and exploring what in this speaks methodologically and substantively to the preceding BoW and Research. I thus begun to orientate SYP around When and when is the work, the audience, the artist. 

So, what at the start of Research has been called near space as geographical concept became refined as contextual distance.

It is quite fabulous to be sitting here, warm sunshine from the back, a flask with good coffee and to be typing these reflections. It’s by far been my biggest project to date, the most expansive site, and at the strangest time (pandemic, Brexit, stroke and later palliative care, and now after the current escalation of war in Ukraine). 

I feel I made good use of the module: of considering my professional practice, its strands and taking serious of a where to with this next. Admittedly, with the social dislocations that went alongside my Level 3, the what with myself as practising artist had slipped into the background, at times I also felt it was fairly open if I would continue with the degree work. The field in which I now move forward to seems more open and precarious, and yet I am glad for the focus some of the dislocation, notably the move to the small village (and fairly stable financial security) had allowed to focus on the artistic practice, I fear that would have not been the case had I stayed in Glasgow (hello, resilience coaching for academic staff under pandemic hellscape by zoom). 

I took the engagement serious, the questions around participation, audience and contact. I found forms that foreground these in the event series and even more so the expanding library a A/Folder zines. I also begun to investigate and engage in new networks and build on existing ones. There is more to be done with all of this, there always is; and still SYP allowed for the establishment (and considered reflection, testing, adjusting) of forms of professional practice that I would otherwise have hesitated to instigate.

A/Folder at assessment

Over the summer I edited the a/folder padlet and researched how this can exist beyond my student status.

I added the various other forms of communication by which material returned to me, group and organised the different strands.

This is its current state (previous posts are here and here; I reflect on its status as interactive web platform (and not a screenshot documentation in a PDF here):

Made with Padlet

Crucially, I include the padlet for the three events which each in turn engaged with a different a/folder.

I also include on the far right and bottom the various processes of myself exploring #8 Go to the meadow, inviting others to join me and over a series of months going to the meadows that have featured in my own work over the years. This is in fact the first time that I, myself, test the a/folders in depth to explore where their methodology leads me to (I also did to some extend with #3 Detach and #6 Drawing/Machine before but not in such depth.

Over the summer I also begin to explore physical, offline manifestations of a new a/folder, #13 a circle completed, which involves a mail art post-and-return process with some cyanotype/chemistry to explore latency and exchange. This so far is not included on the padlet but I have included the visual below in the assessment portfolio.

6 #13 a circle completed a/folder returned to me with various additions

I have for this, like for most other items, continued to write both privately in Evernote, and publicly in Facebook as this blog has fallen out of use. I am transferring my notes on the A/Folder process here to indicate the levels of notetaking and reflection I am engaged in:

The site is, as those before, a padlet, limited as such but also variable and it allowed for text/visual 3rd-party posting. 

Most of the zines formed part of group projects/activities and events, it’s these that generated by far the most return. (for the www residency/exhibition project; as part of the three events I ran in early Spring, as part of my existing GSARD crit group). There are also a few individual enquiries that stretch or exist outwith these group settings. For these I am particularly grateful, most came from existing friendship and/or longer working relationships (i.e. the ones I loved going to the pub with to discuss methodology), but also some newer, less familiar ones. 

After concluding the course module I took those instructions and investigated them myself: some crossovers like fir hide x drawing machine; like go to the meadow (as in: all the meadows I have ever known and loved); like drawing machine x make a pocket. Many of these involved others: with A on Tempelhofer Feld, with L&A on the urban edgeland by the Clyde; with C on her not/meadow; with J in Crosspark, with L in a meadow that was entirely new to me. I didn’t go to Institutional Green for this so far. And I didn’t go to the meadow that is the meadow for this.

While all the For Cover was singular, individual work with me and some contact media, a transformer station, a lot of tree and field, some birds, some burning birch scented air; this became the interactive, participatory enquiry into drawing/contact that sat first off at the heart of what i wanted to do with this cycle of work. It wasn’t comfortable, sometimes decidedly strained, but also lush, tender, funny, insightful, considered, banal and cosmic. It animated in ways I would not have considered possible. It’s super simple in that, some of that workshop feedback was right, yet, more a strength than a weakness. Oh: brainy and gutsy too. Now: how can that translate into a new form/method?

—

Today I am amazed by the richness of the Kaleidoscope explorations: so many contributed. So varied too in modality. I didn’t download all (still need to do that) but many; also a few moving image pieces.

Changing perspective into introspection, what light/distance can do. 

I seem to remember some thoughts/questions over what contextual distance would mean; possibly also some confusion over the haptic/erotic argument?

In retrospect I got so distracted by Anna’s struggle of wanting to take part, not taking part. Why was she there? I still don’t quite get it (and may need to revisit notes again).

—

I hadn’t done the investigations that I instructed. They all developed out of the methods, the glossary, the PaR, but as such they were also new. 

So, taking April-June to explore these myself was really useful.

I was deliberate in varying clarity and obscureness. 

I made them often dialogue pieces, well, not often: with Chris, who had taken the make a pocket to make it a drawing machine for some time; with John I hadn’t talked about it; I mentioned it to Liam and Amelia, but didn’t unpack it; with Angela we also talked about it but in almost all cases then it was my own private enquiry in these meetings. 

—

The crossovers were interesting, very insightful. As if mapping the terrain more fully, as if re-assembling the village edge. An assembly kit? This felt illicit: that early instruction not to mix my series, my work enquiries; and yet: these were of the same site, same project, same enquiry.

—

The pieces that aren’t: the more explicit relational pieces, concerning desire, presence, violence. I name them and number them but they then don’t really appear. Which is fine, it’s like a ghost and my work is quite full of ghost. A sense that there is something else here, hovering, given space for those who may want to recognise it.

— 

I can actually write something much bigger on the #8 Go to the meadow. And I probably should.

How the image with John C. tells of the start of me sitting on that bench in Lockdown 1; of the work that originates from the first pandemic wave.

—

I like how generous and generative this simple writing and noting is. Why do I so rarely make time for it?

—

27/7

This has lingered. I didn’t go back to it, didn’t draft the blog. And still: it feels resolved and good.

I have spent much time exploring the asemic/vispo/ciphers of the PS course. Did in it turn to the meadow as archive and how enso circles can teach me about the different plants growing on the meadow. 

In this I also thought of wanting to send something to GSARD to explore the archive/distance: of making a plant drawn circle with cyanotype; fix it; coat the back, send it unexposed. Perhaps to print on it another A/folder instruction: to send two iterations and a return label to invite them to keep one (fix it? don’t fix it?) and return one (fixed/unfixed?)

I also order Tawnya Renelle’s Prompts — what a lovely way to alter ‘instruction’ ‘score’. I think I can learn much from the poets to be more playful, nuanced with my use of language.

She also told me she was using Fond as way of ordering/disordering an archive. 

28/7

I talk about the archive and Susan mentions directory; but also how it needs care and can be a variety of things, it doesn’t need to all fold into the same structure.

(I may have gotten too concerned with finding the master key here).

I have a fruitful exchange on my final submission to the PS course: of the frustrations in the form. I use it to trace where frustrations do lie, as I felt very happy with having made the PDF as closing piece for the course itself.

Documentation: what form is resolved and/or redundant?

One of the main points of clarification now at the end of the SYP module just before it goes to assessment is the form of the work as it remains, meets audiences/publics and is presented/circulated.

I wrote earlier about documentation and the active process of it in clarification, re-engaging and actively remaking work that exists in live and performative contexts.

I want to document here too some of the failures around the portfolio process.

This one included here is a fairly simple one to report on; the format and orientation of the entire portfolio, ideally a website or at least an epub but I will fall back to a more easily navigated PDF with links (not interactive) is a more difficult one to report back on.

But this simple failure:

I have two new series or rather forms of circulation/engagement with the Stage 3 work; one is the A/Folder padlet, the other one the performative diary around the making of a series of eight successive prints of the fir branch in late March.

Both of these exist online in their form. One, A/Folder as an interactive, expanding padlet space here:

Made with Padlet

The other as this hashtag search on Facebook: #FirHideSideNotes

I create pages of screengrabs from each of these in ID only to discover that they don’t reproduce, they look scrappy, out of place and outdated in form really. What is the point to document them thus? The padlet exists and .PNG files in total which serves as backup and timeline; the FB files are saved in Evernote for my own record, but neither of these forms need an audience, they are internal reference files.

So, I decide for that portfolio to include a mere link to the FB hashtag as included here; for the A/Folder I include one single image and again a simple link to the padlet space.

Thus I fall back to traditional forms of having stills not as installation views but as object in its own right to serve as full page (or diptych) visuals, and the hyperlinked reference. For the #FirHideSideNotes I include these two spreads:

Revisiting documentation: performance, portfolio and beyond

As part of the wander wide web residency and exhibition project with the OCAEU student group, I early on raised the notion of documentation, and what this might entail. I remember us exploring it a little bit, and clearly the decision to have a permanent website (as catalogue) to exist beyond the time limited online gallery space at Kunstmatrix, speak to this need to document beyond the event.

With much of my own work hovering between object and performance, documentation has long been a consideration (and relates too to my explorations around an archive).

I write this post as part of the early, Part 2, coursework and consider documentation as relevant for my practice to be concerned with

For SYP then, documentation is recording of what is to come as engagement/exhibition but since it draws on what was/is, it is the recording of an archive in some sense.

and conclude

Here, documentation is considerable more logistically and conceptually narrow than how I have so far approached the concept of ‘archiving the site and the work’; the latter poses a number of questions concerning the nature of the work, the time/duration of the work and various access/contact points. 

Relevant here then is also how I propose, organise, and in part facilitate a series of informal artist cafe conversations around the ongoing exhibition to a/ engage further with the exhibition, its works and modalities, and also b/ to create a record (experiential for those who attended; and physically as in recorded zoom sessions) to exist beyond the online exhibition. Here, we have run five artist conversations in total, as shown in this screengrab. The recordings circulate to the group as well as any registered attendants, are hosted on an internal g-drive folder and we will place them on the permanent exhibition site also.

Screengrab of wander wide web site frontpage showing the lineup of artist conversations

And as before, the involvement with the wander wide web project helps me clarifying my own processes and practices, to figure out what works well and what is needed to allow e.g. for documentation and for engagement in an online exhibition (which is not what I have chosen for my own work).

The events themselves are documented but as direct engagement with objects, processes, artists and others (visitors, interested bystanders, participants), the re-engagement is productive and also facilitates to document while making.

To me, this learning: of being confident in engagement with and again, in recording in numerous forms, some perhaps redundant, some failing ones too, is significant for the SYP module and to understand my practice as ongoing research while making while documenting.

The course portfolio includes a few further thoughts as to how the visuals of the portfolio are documentation and objects (and which ones also don’t work easily) and it includes a fuller array of where the records of my SYP (and the entire stage 3) are documented.

update: network directory (ex 3.1)

I revisit the list of priorities from Spring on the network directory (adding in purple my current thoughts as of early September 2022.)

Let me try and prioritise:

a/ picking up and consolidating existing relationships across Central Scotland, DIY and artist-run; CCA, Cove Park, Rhubaba and Embassy

This hasn’t really happened: I spoke to a few of my artist friends who have been involved in the DIY spaces but all but one have now left the arts as sector, retraining in data or life science.

At the same time, most of my contacts and networking is taking place in the UK: around poetry/life writing/creative writing, at the intersection of visual poetry/asemic poetry, screenwriting and a little bit of radio art. These originate within twitter contacts but also the two Poetry School courses I took in early Spring and in July.

b/ critical friends  and peer-exchange networks are, not surprisingly, the ones that interest me most; how to develop these further (notably GSARD, OCAEU, 1:1 exchanges too)

These developed most, the GSARD crit group is a constant and inspiring context for crit, reading/discussions and some first exploration of making/showing work together; the OCAEU group a second, I joined the admin team until July 2022 and took part in the wanderwideweb residency and online exhibition. In the latter, much happened in collaborative explorations, in exploring sound in my work, in curating a group show and currently in running a series of artist conversations and how to document the considerable work and exhibition beyond its online presence.

c/ what exists here between Celle, Uelzen and Gifhorn: what artists are based here; any exhibition spaces, and resources (print studio etc), and groups to connect to, any possibility to teach/facilitate?

I made a couple of enquiries and reached out re: access to workshop spaces in one of the larger towns but also local art teachers but nothing has yielded access nor working contacts so far.

d/ walking arts/ site-based work that isn’t geopoetics, place nor landscape : > methods may be a route here (which also addresses colonial legacy of geographic fieldwork)

I followed some online and met up with two artist colleagues to see the Walk! show at Schirn in Frankfurt where one of them was exhibiting, we also talked with one of the show’s curators afterwards.

e/ to write and contribute to: either blog posts or other forms; not primarily academic journals, it needs wider access; I also doubt a publisher as such would be interested

I wrote a couple of blog posts for #weareoca and have begun to investigate how to publish in visual/poetry magazines, perhaps chapbooks etc. I haven’t pursued any more academic publishing so far, remain uncertain about its relevance and/or reach but am also in discussion with academic colleagues about co-authoring more hybrid formats (one a photo essay about pandemic travel restrictions and distance/care).

f/ to circulate and locate both a/folder as free mail art object; but also: photographic prints and cyanotypes as objects for circulation through sale: where to locate them?

I continue to do so with the a/folders and have a rudimentary set up for the other objects but for the latter haven’t found a site to host/facilitate access yet (they currently live on IG).

g/ engagement as key pointer: where and how to base the work; e.g. distribution via mail drop along my commuting route; to colleagues in Glasgow Geography; etc.

These remain to be done: both for academic contexts, the site of the first iteration of Drawing/Contact but also the OCA tutors who I engaged with while at the OCA. I consider a working/viewing presence along my commuting route for the first weekend in September but couldn’t facilitate access early enough to make it viable. So, a local/site-based event/performance remains to be done too.

j/ what is my current social media use and how can I utilise that (e.g. is Facebook rather dead? what puts me off the IG influencers? and what to do with 41 followers on twitter?)

I have resorted back to FB to use it as diaristic performance, recording space; sometimes I use twitter for this too (with a doubled following by now); I am investigating if I set up a regular (monthly) newsletter via substack as a way of moving some of the performative work into a direct readership. I currently use IG as main SM handle and am in the process of building a website via Cargo to act as portfolio. I think I will include my LinkedIn profile for any of the training/facilitation and academic work (I don’t want to clutter the artist portfolio with it, and LinkedIn remains relevant for this line of work of mine.

These following points are more complex to respond to, and I will leave them here for now and return to them in the portfolio document as I look forward.

h/ what does it mean for the work if it solely animates through friendship and personal networks?

i/ what roles does archiving play in all this? does this network differently and otherwise?

plans/memories: a FB memory from 5 april 2019 returns:

Gesa HelmsWednesday morning I say what it is that I will be doing:

– a series of performance pieces/ drawings

– a couple of workshop/event things and 

– some documentation of the above.

That is it. The spatial praxis/ production of space/ site-thing will be part of it as building out and up from the encounters that constitute each. It will be utopian in its concrete practice. Nothing more, nothing less (I would love to call it Beziehungsweise Revolution/ relationally: revolution, but that title is already taken, unfortunately).The documentation will be either in book or in moving image form.Each segment/ section will address or: can address a particular question/ enquiry.I am uncertain if the talks will be part of it or generally merely context. I think that is part of the wider question of what constitutes the site/ the work, i.e., really: if we talk an expanded field of drawing, do we need to have a sense of what is not part of it? what is absent? outside? and, why would that be useful. In that sense, I will have a consideration of distance/closeness in this too, and at that point it loops back into the overall thematic of drawing/contact.The first four events in drawing/contact are intimate and in hindsight, retrospect. I am testing how these relate to the theme and what they do medium/discipline-wise. I am trying not to be too wilful with them, to let them hover for as long as they need to. In some ways, these take inspiration from the events around the line, and reworking the line for the workshop in July into a photo essay and presentation will be great. The drawing/contact encounters are different though as they transgress media/ reach. They are possibly less concerned with secrets and veracity but more curious about the contact, the stuff enacted, where and when it reaches, etc.In this, then, the line, the Gap, and the wider corridor thematic are aufgehoben in the best dialectical sense: they are concluded and superseded into a qualitatively new question (I remember how for each time that aufheben needed translation I was stuck, as stuck as I am now as there is no equivalent in English).

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See (through): practice conversations documentation

For the three see (through): practice conversations I had set up a simple padlet space to serve as context, prompt and holding container for the respective sessions but also to advise on format and preparation (of making use of the respective a/folder zines for each event; of exploring the use of the video camera to facilitate and decentre view and making process).

The padlet is referenced elsewhere (such as images inserted to the a/folder platform) and included here.

For advertising of the events see here, for a reflection and feedback see here.

Made with Padlet

Reflections on entire SYP module

It’s time. There is one week left on this, I take the laptop and my notes to the Trafo, to write one more time in site. I hadn’t taken it much since last summer, now it is warm enough for it again.

It is the last project that my dad will have taken part in. That he commented on, the progress of which he took keen interest in.

I talk about this in the see (through) 2 conversation; as opening and then later too around ‘not making memory’; to John’s question if I knew I was going to archive when I was making the work, and no, I didn’t, it became bigger and more generative than that.

In see (through) 2 I talked about archiving and participation, of the bridging projects I started as such in early summer 2021, and of how these supported the transitions of that time. And that was good.

They also sit as ‘new works’ in SYP, alongside the pinhole images and the New Years’ Day expanded meadow, but much quieter so, or rather: not concluded yet (other than generating insight about site, archiving and participation.

I had started SYP in earnest with a view of archiving the site, of writing myself out of the site. Neither is quite possible as any engagement creates yet new insights, objects, relationships and questions.

At the end of BoW/Research SYP was configured as developing a mobile toolbox of my artistic practice; mobile, to be tested in different sites and contexts as to what these methods of site-based, contact investigations as practice as research could yield.

Such toolbox would seeks other sites by means of residency applications and other forms of networking. I did not travel, though I applied for a digital one with Museum of Loss and Renewal; I also signed up for a Poetry School course on Expanded Screenwriting as Poetry. I furthermore investigated a future residency at Dundalk, Co Louth, Ireland to collaborate with one of my close artist contacts of the past year, Susan Farrelly. Travel remained complex throughout the duration of this module, but now seems a little easier and at least I am moving fairly freely between Glasgow and NW Germany again.

The project plan, also following the first tutorial, became refined around three engagement strands (a simple distribution process of instructive self-print PDF zines; a series of workshops; and also to explore circulating, through sales, some of the many objects that resulted from the practice as research. 

The first tutorial also pointed towards conducting SYP as research: of exploring the means of engagement as drawing/contact and thus of testing and exploring what in this speaks methodologically and substantively to the preceding BoW and Research. I thus begun to orientate SYP around When and when is the work, the audience, the artist. 

So, what at the start of Research has been called near space as geographical concept became refined as contextual distance.

It is quite fabulous to be sitting here, warm sunshine from the back, a flask with good coffee and to be typing these reflections. It’s by far been my biggest project to date, the most expansive site, and at the strangest time (pandemic, Brexit, stroke and later palliative care, and now after the current escalation of war in Ukraine). 

I feel I made good use of the module: of considering my professional practice, its strands and taking serious of a where to with this next. Admittedly, with the social dislocations that went alongside my Level 3, the what with myself as practising artist had slipped into the background, at times I also felt it was fairly open if I would continue with the degree work. The field in which I now move forward to seems more open and precarious, and yet I am glad for the focus some of the dislocation, notably the move to the small village (and fairly stable financial security) had allowed to focus on the artistic practice, I fear that would have not been the case had I stayed in Glasgow (hello, resilience coaching for academic staff under pandemic hellscape by zoom). 

I took the engagement serious, the questions around participation, audience and contact. I found forms that foreground these in the event series and even more so the expanding library a A/Folder zines. I also begun to investigate and engage in new networks and build on existing ones. There is more to be done with all of this, there always is; and still SYP allowed for the establishment (and considered reflection, testing, adjusting) of forms of professional practice that I would otherwise have hesitated to instigate.

SYP as practice as research

Where and when is the site, audience and work/ as early question (SYP 1):

—

In fact, it was phrased like this in July 2021:

Challenge of writing around the idea of SYP as exhibition. 

This is a functional project plan: how does my practice fit within that and where does it really push at the boundaries. 

For this plan, Rachel observes that the concern over audience is really the most interesting area to focus on it: Who is the audience and in what form does the work engage whom, how and where? The instructions and how to push the form between you and the audience; when do you want to be open and revealing; when quite closed and secretive. 

If this work is relational, it is concerned with various relationship forms: actants, matters; public, private, reveal and conceal. The concern of the engagement plan is the how and why, and it can be bristly. 

At the provocative end, Rachel suggests that I could argue that the material is in fact the audience, seeing the new materialist and post-humanist aspects of the work. 

(tutor report, SYP 1, July 2021)

—

And the active research process (also from SYP 1) concerns:

R: To raise a question: for you and others who work with site is the big question: where is the work? What is the work? And a lot of people will only ever see the documentation. There are the audio pieces too but they are of the site, don’t necessarily need to be experienced in site. 

Where is the site, where is the work, where is the audience? Is the engagement with you, the site the work and the question of how it works in proximity to the site. (27:00) 

These don’t fall all into each other: site, work, I, audience. 

It isn’t about near space but contextual distance; these aren’t the same but the distance is being negotiated within the work. 

The concept of a toolbox is helpful: I can pick it up; so perhaps a mobile: what constellation does it all have, how does it move. Some of the distance is structural but some is moved by wind. 

Also: role of time being slow and fast and what that does for proximity. 

(tutor report, SYP 1, July 2021)

—

These were the active questions; the engagement strands addressed these and so did the investigation around archiving and participation. 

Arguably too, the creation of new work processes (and the review of the bridging projects, Making Hay and Fir Hide,) investigated these also.

The site and any engagement is productive.

Once I establish a container (like Stromverteilen, as site, as practice or as method), I can infinitely explore it in numerous connections, the work, the site will be activated in these (possibly more or less successful). The work and the site then also become mobile: processes like a/folder (see a current reflection on this strand here), but even a social media practice of posting circulate the site and the work to different audiences, they fragment, reconstitute, remake and echo (some of these can be controlled but much also becomes involuntary, uncontrolled, perhaps even invisible, latent).

I centred all three engagement strands on these. And they yielded insight. 

Utilising the a/folders in a series of group settings was particularly insightful: they circulated in different ways ahead and prompted in one case a four-week group process of distributed engagement with them; one was tested in crit group and committed group setting (with a lot of criticism to start with), and then there were two that formed a key activity in the see (through) making workshops. In these, like in the first, extended process, the engagement was also very visible, in the case of the workshops even recorded with altered camera angles. And these were great. Excellent in fact. In particular the #12 a Kaleidoscope was almost magical at the making stage but then also when testing. The camera set ups provided fabulous views; and hearing also of how people tested the device and what they observed added another layer yet.

The see (through) series had two somewhat different modalities; the making workshops were possibly (besides the social media advertising) the most uncertain parts of my engagement : of testing art-making instruction when I know that I was particularly interested in the process rather than the object, wanting to foreground the group aspect in this. I was nervous how this would function in zoom and with my art that at the start of the a/folders received a fair bit criticism for being too intellectual and too abstract. 

I have written a longer reflection on access/engagement, notably in relation to the 2 making workshops is this separate post here).

The participation (in) archiving conversation followed a simple format: 3 short introductory presentations from the three speakers, a little response from each to each and then an opening of the conversation to all present. The presentations were concise and insightful, they were open too as to present our current engagement with and thinking about these matters. The conversation that followed from them was generous, engaged, exploratory and genuinely interested in dialogue and intellectual engagement. I remember coming away thinking that I didn’t have to make myself dumb. It yielded a number of new questions and concerns around archiving and participation while at the same time opening an existing conversation between the three of us out to a larger group and made our concerns and our engagement visible also. 

This all poses a series of reflections on the larger project plan for SYP but of course also for the next steps once this module has ended. Please see the respective posts for these.

Access/engagement in see (through): practice conversations

I have started to deposit and reflect on the series of three events and all their attendant conversations and encounters, and I know these reflections won’t conclude by 4 April, the date of my final SYP submission.

I tend to audio note first, then listen, then draw out my thoughts in writing; sometimes the writing is in a sketchbook, sometimes typing is more useful (sometimes in evernote, more rarely, like now directly as blog post).

There is plenty in terms of insight around how these events were set up as practice encounters, how the activities (and a/folders) worked and how the digital space became agentic in the sessions.

What occupied me a lot in planning was who they were for (a bit similar to the a/folders too)? — were they for fellow artists? fellow students? my friends and colleagues who are interested in methodology, though not necessary in artistic practice? where they for people wanting to learn art? for other interested publics? — that really places the question over audience, engagement, and ultimately the relational aspects of my artistic practice back at the centre.

I assessed that in all likelihood the making events were for artists/art students/researchers, at a push those with a substantive interests in site-based work, mobility studies or perhaps also leaning towards the relational questions raised; but if they were concerned about creative activity, the hurdle of a practical workshop was going to be significant.

Nonetheless, I chose to set them up with minimal artistic requirement: curiosity, a couple of simple tools were stated as needed, doing so I hoped to make them accessible to non-artistic researchers; the process-focus to encourage output-focused art students to decentre towards a research perspective.

The activities were practice-led enquiries investigating movement and distance and relating these back to the research, with 15-20 minutes inputs to my own work; two extended making activities and if time allowed a small group activity to explore site/work in these activities and people’s own practice.

I didn’t expect the camera experiments to work so well and to create such an interesting video channel (and that people were so open to experiment with these). I also was surprised as to the insights the simple activities created about moving-with and contextual distance; notably the kaleidoscope activity was generative and insightful in a way that expanded on my own research investigations as part of the degree work.

There were two access issues:

  1. My joining instructions for the first session, moving-with ended up in many people’s spam folder; the eventbrite page had been disabled but pretended to know how to join (only that it didn’t); so a workshop with 18 places booked had six, then four people trying unsuccessfully to join and I started to pick up a series of confused, then irritated messages on three DM platforms and per email. Two joined later, four gave up. Holding this access barrier while running the workshop, where two of eight hadn’t received the joining and preparation info was demanding.
    I picked this issue up afterwards: a comprehensive email and a different set up for the following workshops.
  2. One of the participants (who attended all three sessions) in the first workshop seemed to struggle with not having found the preparatory email, the instructions, the way to work with the camera, and possibly in general the idea of practice-as-research, there were a lot of questions and what I picked up a lot of being bored in that grid position
    I have enough of a facilitation practice to know these difficult roles are generally group roles, someone slips into them, I facilitate to afford them leaving this role. It didn’t quite work though (and it now returned to me in the feedback; as well as a curious wanting to pick my brains for a facilitator for a session which was pretty much my topic, only to tell me that several weren’t after all interested).
    The feedback then was: boring, not novel, tiring. And it curiously got to me (as much as I know the above as structural set up).

From the testing in my crit group and the OCAEU group I know how the work I make activates an edge, is easily perceived as difficult, uncomfortable, not accessible: it often articulates as distance: too abstract, too removed, the site isn’t in reach, the instruction opaque. That for the first session the platform conspires and locks half my eager participants out is quite something, and quite true to the first experiments with the a/folder series.

There is something about trust and commitment in the work. And how it gets criticised accordingly. I will take this to further reflection and further development.

I am incredibly grateful to have explored a creative facilitation practice that isn’t art instruction or output focussed but instead offers my own methods for appropriation and exploration (and also: abandonment and critique). I find the first access issue (spam-foldered instruction and eventbrite circuit of nowhere) quite easily addressed, the follow-up for that was successful, and several attended the later meetings or watched the videos. The latter is trickier and speaks also to the very specific OCA student cohort and expectations within that (and my own impatience with it).

In the greater scheme of feedback, this is one negative in currently five feedback form responses and more than that unprompted follow-ups post-event by email or DM. Yet: if I want to make space and hold it for divergence, I should attend to how to better hold these critical, difficult roles in making workshops (which I can hold very well in academic settings), where my own position seems more exposed than in my usual facilitation practice.

Thanks so much for this evening, Gesa!  Great to hear you speak of your work, and also John and Susan.  I’m thinking about drawings I made of my heartbeat, which I stored in a box (archive?) with new eyes.  Lots of things to think about!  I only picked up your mail below on Tuesday morning, but hope you had fun on Monday evening?  I love drawing machines and blind touch drawings (some of these have become an important part of my practice) so such a shame to have missed it.

Thank you very much for organising the workshop. It has been eye-opening for me on many levels but mainly it made me  question why I do things the way I do them and how to pay more attention going forward.
I couldn’t attend the first sessions but I did the exercises mentioned in the first session after I viewed the video. I’ve tried to upload my images to the Padlet in case that would be helpful for you.
May I please ask you if you could forward me the link to the second session recording? I would be interested to listen to the conversation between Susan and John.
Thank you very much.
Wishing you success with the assessment!

Hi gesa. Was lovely to see you! I really enjoyed the workshop.looking forwards to Wednesday. X

Here is the PDF from the feedback form responses (updated 5 April 2022, 7 responses):

feedback-to-see-through-practice-conversations-5-april-2022Download

A/Folder update at the end of SYP

I created and circulated further A/Folder since I tested them first at the end of 2021. The most recent edition is #12 a Kaleidoscope, there exist a couple more drafts.

This is the expanding platform for the series:

Made with Padlet

I tried and tested a series of engagements, the losest being a general tweet, the closest printed out zines posted to colleagues or as this part of the tutorial discussion shows, being attached DM conversations with friends.

Tutorial report SYP A5, 25/3/2022

There is much more in this project as to engagement, contact, instructions and obligation. I have begun to draw out a number of these issues since inception and they have been discussed throughout the tutorials 3 and 4.

At this point I am intending to let this project continue to run, I have created a section in the Portfolio for SYP and will update accordingly for the assessment (Autumn 2022).

I recorded the changes to the padlet (however only since I moved from blocks to canvas, I had initially set it up as a post wall but found that didn’t work when I begun to receive longer text submissions). Today, 2 April, I have removed the need to approve posts, none of the submissions have been spam and I want to give those who submit posts more choice over placement, sizing and engagement with the site.

I also received a whole series of post for #8 Go to the meadow, as response to one of my three DM inputs discussed above.

Here a gallery with the existing screenshots:

see (through): practice conversations | 3 events in March

Three online events in March invite you to explore jointly sites, methods and themes of For Cover, my practice-as-research based body of work.

As practice-as-research For Cover articulates across four covers, four blankets, at the forest edge (and just beyond it) in drawing and contact: haptic and tactile media such as frottage and cyanotype trace wind, rain, sound and care in site-specific installations. It circulates already as an expandable PDF to zine library/archive: A/Folder: an instructive glossary, and a series of objects, b-hold: circulatory objects to touch. see (through): practice conversations is the third aspect of exploring its publicness.

Two making workshops invite you to join me and explore some of the methods and tools of my enquiry: drawing machines, mobiles, and viewing devices to engage senses across the visual and the tactile.

1: Moving-with is interested in how our embodied movements, feet, bodies, hands, produce tactile objects and enquiries.

3: Contextual distance enquires into where is the site, work and audience between the visual and the haptic.

Inviting individual explorations ahead of the sessions, the zoom-based workshops seek to utilise the digital space our meeting to navigate across contact, distance and closeness between desk and camera.

2: participation (in) archiving invites two fellow artists, Susan Farrelly and John Umney, to join me to open our ongoing practice conversations across archiving and participation –who where when and what of our practice; their temporalities and spaces; their discipline and subversions.

For the making workshops, there is a little preparation ahead of them (and limited spaces). You don’t need to bring any making skills, merely an inquisitive mind, and a few simple tools (paper, drawing implements in monochrome or colour).

Sign up via Eventbrite for further details.

The events will take place via zoom with links provided ahead of the events.

All events in this programme:

1: moving-with (a making workshop): Monday 14/3 6.30-8.30pm UK 

2: participation (in) archiving (a conversation with Susan Farrelly and John Umney): Wednesday 16/3 6.30-8.30pm 

3: contextual distance (a making workshop): Monday 21/3 6.30-8.30pm UK 

Submission SYP 3: Networking

I send a note last week outlining what I would like to discuss as

  • feedback
  • networks :: I started a directory but it’s far too much stuff, so it is here that I would really welcome a discussion as to where to prioritise and how to proceed
  • archiving
  • circulating objects for free/ but also selling c-prints and cyanotypes :: any views, approaches, sites etc

I write some of these offline, while archiving is very much a WIP with many notes (written, audio) but not coming together just yet.

Tallying this with the coursebook requirements adds also some update re further resolved work and project plan.

So, this post constitutes again my assignment submission (along with a couple of files submitted directly as part of the network directory).

1/ networking (a directory). It’s a WIP (largely as it’s extensive due to the overlap continuity of existing academic/artistic and pedagogic practice), so there is some need to refine as to what steps are prioritised. I begin to outline key points in this post: https://close-open.net/2022/01/18/exercise-3-1-network-directory/

2/ feedback. There is a history of work offered for crits and feedback received in peer networks. I wrote the following post specifically on the a/folder engagement series and as reflection of this also: https://close-open.net/2022/01/18/exercise-3-3-recent-feedback-to-a-folder/

3/ further refinement/ development of work for presentation: I offer an update on the circulation of the a/folder series here: https://close-open.net/2022/01/17/a-folder-an-instructive-glossary-update-1/ ; an outline of the event series to accompany it as engagement here: https://close-open.net/2022/01/18/event-series-as-part-of-presentation/ ; and finally another piece of work (a series of cyanotype prints around the extended meadow, with a view of selling these here: https://close-open.net/2022/01/17/a-new-years-day-sited-archive/. These also include any thoughts concerning changes.

4/ I have not updated the project plan at this point but will revisit for assignment 4.

5/ archiving site: it’s an ongoing enquiry, I took many notes but haven’t reviewed these yet further. I will present some of this for the next assignment and offer for discussion in the actual tutorial this time.

I am currently working towards the current module end of 13 April. I enquired about a possible extension but am uncertain if it will benefit me all that much: there is value in concluding this and there is ample time for both the event series and a/folder series to circulate and provide plenty of material to develop then the next steps post-coursework.

exercise 3.1: network directory

Coursebook instructions: This could be one of the most important research tasks you’ve ever undertaken! The multi- disciplinary nature of Creative Arts at OCA makes it impossible to list every festival, fair and competition in every subject area that goes on across the UK and beyond. The onus is on you as a creative artist to find out what’s out there, using the OCA website and the list below as a starting point. Scan all the options, unless they are obviously irrelevant to your creative areas, and start your own resource directory, using whatever format works for you. This exercise is worth spending time on and doing properly. You’ll be able to add to your directory as you evolve as a creative artist and develop it into an extensive resource relevant to your needs. Be discriminating, though – focus on networks that really look as if they could be useful for you. Find a way to highlight any or all of the following, as relevant: 

  • people to start a conversation with 
  • companies to work for 
  • internships to apply for 
  • agencies to approach 
  • networks and collectives to join 
  • blogs to send your work to or write an article for 
  • galleries to submit work to 
  • books to read 
  • competitions or awards to enter 
  • festivals to visit 
  • postgraduate courses to apply to 
  • professional bodies to join 
  • funds to apply for (discussed in more detail below). It might also be useful to have a calendar section to note down: 
  • things to follow up – for example, portfolio reviews happening in your area, forthcoming concerts or recitals 
  • key dates – competitions and shows (e.g. Frieze) tend to happen at the same time every year. 

— I can start wherever and easily be overwhelmed. I have been working across academia, arts and education for fifteen+ years.During Drawing 2 I went to a number of conferences with my artistic work (WalkingArts; SARS) to explore academic/practice settings for my academic/artistic practice. The list here is vast and I started with tracing recent conversations, some that I struck up  in order to pick up with artists/educators conversations and exchanges that got stalled during Covidbrexitillness time.Did I say, the routes are vast: both academically and artistically. I am hesitant as to where to make a start:There are elements of walking arts; of drawing research and mail art that interest me; there are also a few connections across academic/artistic practice to explore (wider education, creative methods; geography, my own discipline, is interested but I am uncertain if I am still), there are also the PAR networks that are opening up through Rachel’s tutoring and my own forays into Twitter, wider edges around Facebook etc.

Let me try and prioritise:

  • picking up and consolidating existing relationships across Central Scotland, DIY and artist-run; CCA, Cove Park, Rhubaba and Embassy
  • critical friends  and peer-exchange networks are, not surprisingly, the ones that interest me most; how to develop these further (notably GSARD, OCAEU, 1:1 exchanges too)
  • what exists here between Celle, Uelzen and Gifhorn: what artists are based here; any exhibition spaces, and resources (print studio etc), and groups to connect to, any possibility to teach/facilitate?
  • walking arts/ site-based work that isn’t geopoetics, place nor landscape : > methods may be a route here (which also addresses colonial legacy of geographic fieldwork)
  • to write and contribute to: either blog posts or other forms; not primarily academic journals, it needs wider access; I also doubt a publisher as such would be interested
  • to circulate and locate both a/folder as free mail art object; but also: photographic prints and cyanotypes as objects for circulation through sale: where to locate them?
  • engagement as key pointer: where and how to base the work; e.g. distribution via mail drop along my commuting route; to colleagues in Glasgow Geography; etc.
  • what does it mean for the work if it solely animates through friendship and personal networks?
  • what roles does archiving play in all this? does this network differently and otherwise?
  • what is my current social media use and how can I utilise that (e.g. is Facebook rather dead? what puts me off the IG influencers? and what to do with 41 followers on twitter?)

exercise 3.3: recent feedback (to a/folder)

I offer a/folder at various stages but then with a series of finished PDF to print zines in two crit group sessions and individually also. This below traces these and responses and reflections:

1/ OCAEU December tutor-led crit: a/folder PDFs to print (several, deposited with a series of Qs in a padlet ahead of the tutor-led session)It’s an interdisciplinary OCA student group, a mix of levels and disciplines, with possibly a sizeable number of textile students, a few native English speakers living elsewhere in Europe, age-wise I am in the younger half of the group.I ask for a slot, despite being on the organising team (there were however three spare slots still available and we needed to fill them). I prepare carefully a short set of posts, along with two pdfs and questions as to format, engagement invitation, actually content/process and upload these well ahead of the meeting,I am second to present, am asked to introduce the work, take one of my folded zines and show it on camera.I struggle with the distance and struggle to conceal my surprise that noone has printed these. I am offered that these are too intangible, as PDFs, while they know I make some wonderful work, this seems abstract. But also intimidating: the instructions for the PDF seem to be set out to make them fail, so they step away. I struggle with this: I didn’t at all anticipate that the first point ‘PRINT’ wasn’t enacted; nor that the PDF format would through people out entirely. I also struggle with not being too sarcastic at this point as to materiality.I am also asked what people would get back from it? I am surprised: here’s a free piece of artwork from me for you, and you ask what you will get from me for engaging with it? That that exchange would be conceived mean hadn’t occurred to me. What would people get back from going to a gallery? The tutor asked me to contextualise the work: who was I inspired by or was it my brainchild? That comment jarred similarly, and I brushed her off. Someone offered multiples and artist books.What it showed was the delicacy of exchange and distance: that the format shift moved it out of art object to critique; there was a sense of obligation, but also uncertainty over exchange, of being fearful of not getting it or failing. Interestingly, this all foreclosed the materiality of actually having a tactile hand-sized object that would move from my screen to your screen to your printer.
Follow-up 1: OCAEU cafe early January with three who were also at the crit.The two who were most sceptical as to the abstract nature of my work brought the work up again and we ended up talking through the PDF and the process: how big? can I fold this? The process was warm and interested, I was offered how my work is so full of integrity and very much my own work to which I stay true. But also: it seems just so much work at L3 (the two are in the final parts of L2 and considering whether to proceed or not). (I had hoped to find some more notes on this but I don’t seem to have any in writing nor audio).Oh, but what was interesting too was that I talked about my incredulity that the objects failed at the very first instruction: print. And that I struggled to process that and to stay involved. We talked further about distance, the haptic and materiality.
Follow-up 2: OCAEU exhibition group WIP (I circulated #6 drawing/machine as collaborative proposal to the 20 who are part of the exhibition project.We each prepared a slide for our WIP as part of this group project. I introduce mine and the idea  behind engagement via a/folder. I preface the request being extensive (other projects involve a digital photo being sent; a couple of leaves collected and posted, a canvas received, dipped in water and returned). We use, for the presentations, the chat to offer comment, feedback, association to the themes the others present. I see the chat floating by and it almost in its entirety sits with expressions of commitment of contributing. I remember being surprised by this, as I was confident that one or no return at all would also be a good outcome and no sign of this not working.

Follow-up 3: the first drawing machine is offered: a FB post, an email and blog post. ‘This was such fun!’ — There is much more in this, and I will collect alongside further responses. The joy however: again, one who was most critical of the abstract nature of the object, and then it offered such enjoyment. I myself had forgotten the joy that resided in many of my earlier projects and also in the objects that I devised around Trafo and meadow. And here it returned as the first comment, along with two A3 tracing paper, a custom-made string, a set of notes and a bit of background about the tree who drew, a hundred year apple tree (cooking variety) somewhere in the vicinity of Kopenhagen.The FB group post yields yet more of : oh, this is exciting and an enticement to participate. Later, another email tumbles in requesting my postal address (while a windstill but dry day doesn’t move their pen currently all that much) — my two colleagues who worried about the intangibility of the PDF now made drawings to be posted to me.


2/ GSARD crit/making session: proposed #3 detach back in October as part of a first set of instructions for some collaborative work; then asked for a session in late January to navigate a refined #3 detach as shared project of the preceding four weeks.We use email and a shared google file for the collaborative work.As part of this process, I choreograph #3 detach on site, around the fir hide, make an audio file, a couple of photographs and other work is tumbling in on the google drive ahead of our meeting.I will report back. 


3/ conversation with JW about a/folder zines and mail art circulationJW and I have been talking about our respective art, while one time being concurrent Drawing 2 students, over the years. She also contributed to my earlier request to make a viewing device. We caught up a little in late autumn and I asked her again about mail art, my PDF to print zines, she in turn is curious about what I will do after.We talk and then she turns to: ‘So, no one has given you feedback yet (I told her of 1/, before its further iteration occurred). She said: First, this isn’t a zine. I expect more pages and also: it doesn’t fold right, the printer edge muddles it and the text spills to the next page. If you had called this an activity sheet, I wouldn’t have minded but for me this is too scrappy. She also offers:

  • if you want others to send you something, then it’s mail art
  • how she introduced me elsewhere are a mix between walking artists and performance artist

And the most generous comment concerns participation, it develops following a recent show of a large piece of collaborative work, shown in a gallery space nearby, and she said it all very much reduced her to being a spectator. She continues as says that my work wasn’t private; that while I initiate it, it is collaborative; it’s very different to standing and looking at a photography. She ponders that she possesses the work, it’s quite private but she can then also decide to do more with it.I send her another PDF, Make a pocket, and ask if she is interested in exploring the instructions, the content of the not/zines. She says yes.

Event series as part of presentation

Besides the circulation of the a/folder series, my project plan includes a series of events. I had been thinking of how these could sit between making, enquiry, dialogue and presentation. With so much of my work sitting within practice as research, I don’t want a simple artist talk but something that engages in similar measures as the a/folders invite. I think it is within these modalities that digital distance can be fruitfully engaged with.

I mapped and arrived at the following:

A series of events that engage the questions over

Contextual distance || moving-with

  • where is the work?
  • where is the site?
  • where is the audience?

In some sense, a/folder in its iterations and circulations is my response to these questions that guide this current module. Yet, I would like to research together with participants in an interactive workshop format these questions in relation to their own practice. Likely, an a/folder or two will be part of my introduction, facilitation but it’s not a show and tell.

So, I am proposing:

2 digital making workshops (of 2-3 hours), with limited number of participants (up to 20), possibly solely advertised through OCA networks and my own, one each on

a/ contextual distance

b/ moving-with

(or the order is reversed)

Then, a third event as conversation with two fellow artists opening out the above in the context of archival practice and participation. This can be more widely advertised and not with a numbers cap. The two artists in mind have been discussants of our respective works for some time. I will approach the second (the first already agreed) shortly to gauge if it’s feasible.

The aim is for these sessions to take place throughout March, with a view of concluding in time before the module ends (mid-April).

sketchbook mapping of event ideas

tutor report: SYP 2 Resolution

My timetable has been fairly tight after assignment 2: generally 4-6 weeks between the assignments to fit into the standard course duration. So, as I am submitting SYP3, I am posting the report from the previous assignment. We had the tutorial shortly after my submission.

The overall summary is:

I am presenting a largely chronological account of the tutorial. It covers similar themes as before: 

Audience specificity; forms of engagement; the questions over archiving/site and how all these are being addressed in the concept of the PDFs A/Folder that is form in which I consider engagement to function:

The discussion as all preceding ones rich and nuanced. I record and compile and realise the benefit of this note-taking mechanism: how the reports are truly mine and my work/practice documents (I remember how early on I was missing the authoritative voice of telling me how well I was doing).

Much of the discussion concerns the details of the a/folder process and the specificity of audience, direction and control:

Instructions to follow and/or diverge:

SYP of following instructions and giving people instructions and the relationship of giving permission to be wild and lose as to what people do with the instructions that you are giving them. How do you test that, the language, the permissions, the openness of the instructions that you give. That is key to the engagement. 

Rachel mentions how people talk about Sol Lewitt’s instructions and there not being an alternative of how to follow them and that seems incredible as there is much in how they could have been interpreted differently.

This relates again to the Village Book; and the questions of distance: on how to do things differently, and what that means in terms of authority and control. This is where the crit group is really interesting: a couple are wary of my work as they fear getting lost; there is a threat of dissolution in it; at the same time they were adamant that I mustn’t instruct. Yet, my instructions aren’t instructions but you need to be calm enough to realise that there is no instruction. So there is a really careful negotiation of not free will but relational bind of what sits in that relation the work constructs with audiences. The literalness of my approach, and how it does employ the opposite at the same time. It is not anxiety over being a good student but: am I understanding the order of the world and how does this order affect me: do I get how this building functions and what effect does this function have on me? Rachel: this is where the pandemic comes back in, in relation to authority and being pushed/forced.

…

What is the return process? How do they get back to you? Is that specific enough?

  • Am I tearing a hole in this? Or am I using a new paper? Is this specific enough? How do you test it?
  • I sent verge/weed to three creative friends and various engagement process. But does this mean it is only for creative friends?
  • > what is the audience? What audience do I care for? 
  • < what is the entry level? Is this enough. 
  • Perhaps be more directive: this is my return address, send me something. 
  • Do you want knowing people or unknowing people? 
  • Different objects and instructions for different cohorts: testing relational bind and testing distance. It will teach me about looseness of contact. Different objects for different audiences: I will always have to presume or anticipate my audience.
  • Will I drop an instruction along the commute route? Doing something with the kids and their earlier engagement with the drawing machine but also the found notebook process.
  • Multitudes of routes how the work is encountered and how this can be tested and engaged with: the moments of nearness and distance in the work itself and these instructions as part of the networking. 
  • How to navigate the instruction, what needs to be clear and what is possible in the inbetweenness. 
  • My friends and the trees as my audience: maybe that is sufficient; because: what is the pay-off? Having good questions and processes.
  • Not to squander opportunities to ask 20 people to do something for me. But also, not everyone needs the same instructions, so I can have quite different processes and instructions, different routes and all this is testing distance. Different instructions to people within a group can be really interesting too to show differentiation in the world too: how we relate to authority? Inside? Outside?
  • What can be dropped where and perhaps returned? What can be sent out on social media and returned that way?

I reread now and note the action points:

  • What objects work for what audiences? Then sending these out and explore what comes back. First three months in the year to do this.
  • How to proceed with the workshop? Let me write through this: three sessions, towards the end of the course, in March. This is my comfort zone. Who would I like to invite for a panel? Perhaps some money for artist fees? If we meet for the next tutorial in mid-January we can discuss this further.

gesa_helms_sypa2-1Download

a new year’s day sited archive

I still had a full set of the Hahnemuehle etching paper that I have been using for the Am Walde cyanotypes and wanted to print the woods again, this time with a view of making the prints available for sale. I couldn’t quite decide on the time, initially it was supposed to happen during Spring 21, then it didn’t. Then I liked the idea of reprinting in similar environmental conditions, i.e. around Winter solstice a year later.

I took New Year’s Day as the day to site paper, having treated it with chemistry shortly before midnight on the Eve. I went to a couple of familiar sites: one knobbly branch junction in a conifer, larches, blueberries and tree stumps. But by and large let myself to be guided by what objects held my attention.

I placed all sheets in the morning and collection most of them in the afternoon.

I also placed a number of them on the meadow, flat, facing upwards, nothing obstructing the direction of sunlight. I left these four outside, they got fixed by heavy rain during the night so the recording duration was rather short. I went to coat them again, placed them again to repeat, and repeated for some a third iteration to explore what is in repeat coating/exposure but also how time records work in the medium. There is likely another post on this to be written.

I also double-exposed the blueberry ones with damson and wild peach.

So heres: a rogue rhododendron, a low fence gate, peach and damson, blueberries, a dead conifer, broom, larches, a birdbox, a leftover field of grain, stumps and debris, the open meadow, the site of a drawing machine (conifer and ground). I cropped some of them too, so they are at a maximum 27.9×38.1 cm.:

NYD: a sited archive 1-25

I had a couple of iterations of editing and grouping these:

a/folder: an instructive glossary (update 1)

I set up an Indesign file where I keep adding page spreads (A4) to make new iterations of a/folder PDF to print zines.

I tested a few of the early ones with artist friends and refined and edited. I then circulated 3 so far, 2 within my Crit group, one in the OCAEU exhibition group.

The format of the the a/folders has a single A4 page as inside, as the specific object of the a/folder; it then on out the outside has a title page, a folder instruction (with links to the project padlet and a contact email address), there is a notes page and a short statement specific to each iteration too.

I am currently experimenting with

  • audience: single, specific, groups; artists and/or other publics; anonymous/general online posting/reposting
  • content: method, site, relationship between object/maker/participant
  • aesthetics/design: various forms of photographic images, as such, of sketchbook pages, using font or handwritten text (immersive to detached)
  • types of invitation, instruction: direct, subtle, disinterested

The post on feedback concerns a series of responses to the a/folder work presented in a couple of group/crit contexts and individually.

All of these so far are strongly mediated by my own relationship with the recipients, and I am interested in the responses to the digital distance, but also concerning the nature of exchange and sense of obligation involved; there are also all sorts of misunderstandings and different response to direction/control or lack thereof.

I have started to receive a number of responses back from the group processes, concerning #5 Make a Pocket; #3 detach and #6 drawing/ machine. They are vastly variable from each other, and quite distinct. Part of that is of course also who responds, but I start to sense the role opacity of instruction plays in this.

Possibly the most interesting response to date is the one from a durational group process among OCA students (working on an exhibition for June 2022), where collaboration is one of the shared working methods. It’s also the one context where the nature of a/folder was most sceptically received: its abstract, intangible nature as PDF format but also concerning the exchange modality. The a/folder invites a response of setting up a drawing machine on a plant, twig, bush, branch or tree and trace wind and other movements on tracing paper to return to me by post. It is one process I used quite a bit during Research but didn’t include in the BoW portfolio and the first responses were: ‘This is so much fun!’ — I had forgotten my own fun with this and other processes and was quite happy to see that surface so strongly and clearly as so much of my pre-Level 3 work was strongly informed by joy and playfulness and a bit of mischief. These seemed to have gotten a little lost with all the contact restrictions but here they were quite at the heart of my archiving process.

Within the collaborative group process I have also made two a/folders in response to one particular request by a colleague: to help preserving a leaf. She asked for different methods/routes towards trying to do so and I was intrigued how the a/folder process can work reactively but also for how my methods can circulate in such a manner.

I am inviting responses to any of the a/folders to post to this padlet and will write further updates on the process as it unfolds.

Next steps:

  • how to post on FB, twitter and Instagram (it needs a couple of containers for each of these)
  • to continue making further a/folders and exploring their modality and content
  • to post to e.g. mail art groups or wider OCA discussions to invite more of the distanced responses to it
  • to consider a mail drop to some of the people on my commuting walk and living adjacent to the site

Inside view of #6 drawing/ machine

Submission SYP 2: Resolving your work

This constitutes the submission of assignment 2 for SYP: Resolving your work.

Four elements (and related links) form this submission

1/ revised and new work;

2/ reflection on 1/ in light of presentation concerns

3/ a synopsis of my presentation plans

4/ revised project plan.

I wrote 1/ and 2/ a little ago: essentially concluding that little is to be revised as body of work and that in fact the objects created/revised form part of the engagement itself (for the purpose of this submission these are also called presentation, but I understand engagement to be more than presentation form.

1/ and 2/ are in this post: https://close-open.net/2021/11/18/syp-2-resolving-the-body-of-work/

3/ I argue that the two pinhole photographic prints constitute new work, made for circulation/engagement (while resulting out of the final stages of the Research dissertation enquiry): https://close-open.net/2021/11/28/for-cover-contact-and-gaze-pinhole-images-for-sale/

These then fold forward to the substantial addition of new objects, engagement objects, that are tentatively called A/ folder or An Instructive Glossary to: a growing series of zines in PDF print at home download format as presented in #3 Detach and #4 Open in this post: https://close-open.net/2021/11/28/a-folder-or-perhaps-an-instructive-glossary-to/. I am in the process of testing these in a series of small group settings to explore the viability of them being responsive and generative as a process.

There are a series of research processes at play around engagement, archiving and distance, with distance likely informing both of these others. I have written a little on aspects of contextual distance here: https://close-open.net/2021/10/15/contextual-distance-in-the-padlet-portfolio/ and here: https://close-open.net/2021/11/18/archiving-site-1/, and it is also raised in relation to the audience considerations for the above zine process.

I am also proposing for presentation aka engagement a series of workshop/discussion events: I would like these to be practice as research, making workshops and/or panel discussions and dialogue. There exist a few first considerations as to focus:

The idea is that these workshops run over a 3-4 weeks in February/March 2022 as digital events.

The presentation/engagement in digital form is being explored: perhaps, given the discussions around contextual distance, see blog link above re to archiving, the padlet is a suitable mediator for the work; I am however also testing Adobe Portfolio (perhaps too Creatives for my purpose, or other unlimited single page site — I intend to turn to this over the next assignments, and perhaps it sits as project on my artist website).

For the on site/ adjacent to it engagement, I am exploring e.g. a maildrop of a similar single page zine as for the A/folder PDFs along my ‘commuting route’, i.e. 15 houses, or similar.

4/ I have updated the project plan accordingly, along with the timeline here:

syp-a2-project-plan-november-21Download

A/ folder or perhaps: An instructive glossary to

Most of my past few weeks were spent doing two things:

a/ to explore the notion of archiving (on site/ in notation); and

b/ to work through the questions around engagement.

I want to unpack the latter here in more detail as part of my submission of SYP2: Resolving my work: PDF zines for circulation as WIP.

The project plan of SYP always included an analogue element: perhaps a artist book/box to circulate in a limited edition; perhaps a performance/event on site or adjacent to (besides its already existing digital form, perhaps edited, perhaps transposed to a different platform from the padlet site).

The idea of an assemblage, an artist box, a limited edition originates with the idea of a large Research drawing or perhaps a large drawing that concluded the body of work. I have spent many hours on site/ about the site to work through the elements, strands, connections and dissonances only to find that such drawing remained elusive. There was however a list of objects that could transpose the site to elsewhere (even fit into a box to be posted; to be non-precious too). Some elements were: larch essential oil, a cone, a feather, an instruction for a drawing machine, a notation of burning birchwood and crows flying overhead.

Again, the materials seem too… perhaps too literal or too romantic, too much trying for immersion when earlier I had deliberately trying to distance myself from that and a simple sense-transferal from here to anywhere.

In my sketchbooks of the original site, the staircase, I find two instructive participatory processes that I have experimented with: a zine around a hatch atop of the staircase, and an instruction for a viewing device. The latter was posted to three friends/colleagues and returned.

Along with my current sketchbook notes and the instructions to touch that I developed as part of For Cover, these in turn became the following:

An expandable collection of PDFs, with printing and folding instructions, relating to variable elements of my practice as research: site, object, method. I modelled two and am attaching them here along with some relevant visual documentation.

#3 Detach:: presents a series of instructions around the notion of distance: to process a single line, phrase or in entirety

3-detachDownload

#4 Open:: a new invitation to copy a viewing device and use it.

4-openDownload

I made simple instructions on the outside, along with title and a return address.

They can circulate as PDF and by means of a double-sided printer can then materialise as a small folded zine, a single image inside.

The series is flexible and can be expanded in various directions and include a number of objects and enquiries.

This unfolding does not yet have an adequate instruction in the PDF:

For Cover (contact) and (gaze) pinhole images (for sale)

Following my experiments with a large-format pinhole camera (taking 4×5 sheet film), I have subsequently edited and printed two images from this research enquiry.

The pinhole camera has an aperture of f232, i.e. very small. It means too that all that is in view is in focus: the very small aperture affords a depth of field far beyond any of the usual small aperture of e.g. f16 or f20. It comes with a long exposure time, which I utilised then for the double exposure of For Cover (gaze), the only sign of it on the other print is my translucent thumb (there/not there).

The pinhole camera was a new process (and so was large format sheet photography); it arose as an enquiry and pursuit around the viewing devices and games; that Laura Marks names its all-in-focus vision as the antidote to the haptic and erotic showed me that my line of enquiry was well worthwhile.

For Cover (contact) has become the title image for the BoW of portfolio: It looks onto the meadow from ground level at the time and site of the Walnut Tree of Touch (a Potential Blanket). The weather was sunny spring, the meadow full of small white flower heads and succulent greens, my little thumb also got a sighting.

It is printed via a hybrid process (chemical processing, digital scan, photographic printing) almost as a contact print but since contact sheets no longer exist as actually possible indexical form, I settled for a resonance of that mass printing format of 10x15cm. So, the dimensions of the print are 8.9 x 11.7 cm, no border, on glossy Kodak paper. They are batch printed and numbered in an open edition.

As objects, I experimented with two frames: the infinity, or floating, frame was my initial intention: an ever so slightly portrait-oriented, deep wooden frame, with the print floating just underneath a museum-grade glass. The second frame is a simple, ready-made square frame (at 20x20cm) with a mountboard sitting 0.5 cm outside the print, the board here is ever so slightly green, for the infinity frame the mountboard is a very slight beige.

For Cover (contact)

For Cover (gaze) is a double exposure image taken from the transformer station onto the meadow and back to the station. It merges thus sidelines, trees and plants along with a concrete cover.

It is one of a series of visual experiments with looking forward and back, with one looking and another returning the look. Gaze seems appropriate as it lingers.

The printing process as is like the earlier one, the dimension however different. The print on glossy Kodak is 15×20.1 cm; the prints again batch printed and numbered in an open edition.

For Cover (gaze)

As objects that sit directly at the research of the For Cover body of work: in terms of visual enquiry, contact processes and the exploration of site and movement within this, I am interested in offering these as objects to circulate.

Each print is offered for sale, along with a short statement of For Cover, for £35 or €35 including postages to the UK and Europe. Further abroad: ask. If you are interested in purchasing one or the other, get in contact via the contact form on the left-hand menu (payment via paypal or bank transfer).

SYP 2.2: Presentation and/or site visit

Presentation is routinely a gallery exhibition; and so it takes me a couple of rounds to read the details that veer off from this format. I am at the point of submitting SYP 2; print out the instructions in the coursebook and marvel at a site visit proposition for my engagement. Let me explore this a little:

Venue, venue, venue — it isn’t quite event, is it? How is my dislocated venue visited? I link to it, on social media, in DMs, in email footers and physical print outs (I am still undecided if QRs are rubbish, pandemic-light, or rather smart functional). There are plenty architectural details: letterboxes, the folds of paper print outs, the question as to ‘what type of printer do you have and use?’; and then there is of course a physical site that I tried to offer immersively, instructively; erotically even too, but that then became a blanket for cover.

My work, my objects, portfolio, research, glossary, sound notes, flow through these effortlessly; I realise I am not concerned and don’t need to be concerned about the objects to be engaged with: they don’t need reworking; they may need selecting, orientating, engaging; but somehow even the choice as to which ones seems not too important.

Scale: insignificant to cosmic. It contracts and expands thanks to several folders.

Services: care work; haptic encounter, a pinhole camera offering all in sharp focus, if you linger you may drown a little at will; there is a hide for cover, numerous blankets; a pencil or ten, swirls skywards and along the horizon line. All these services, in service, playful and with utmost sincerity.

Health and safety: a magnetic current field; underfoot you feel it, how far does it stretch? If you don’t lift your foot you may trip while trespassing. Mind the dog shit too. And if this was summer: the horseflies. Oh, the horseflies. And then, how far away is your screen, do you squint your eyes, hunch your shoulders, strain your wrists?

Sound is distant but a set of good headphones can come to your (or my) aid here.

All in this is abundant and non-precious. This secures protection. But then, I lost a set of good tree drawings to an exasperated owner once. Or do I misremember now.

Hold you phone, follow the link and there is your moving image doubled.

There are numerous paths, you can veer off too and rummage a little with squirrels and thrushes. The jays invite you to flap your wings. That’s all the directions needed, I feel.

My insurance covers outside the EU these days; there are public right of ways, to cross the woods and meadows too. But, mind, your dogs needs to be kept on a leash for most of the year.

Dog walkers are still there; not many else but that may change in the next few weeks depending on how unsafe indoors is turning again.

Let me tell you a story. Or, have a title. I may offer some simultaneous interpreting however. I am not sure they quite caught my accent at my last public speaking engagement in early September.

All totally within reach; just move one foot here, another there, reach your hand out and listen intently: there you are.

(I wrote of the Stromverteilen site, I realise; it may need a little tweaking for its remote versions).

(I only wrote of the Stromverteilen site in the lower part of this, so it evidently changed, narrowed as site; it may not need any tweaking after all).

SYP 2.3: Thinking about documentation

Pretty much all that I call archiving falls under this activity’s ‘documentation’. Similar as with the submission of BoW, the documentation presents the work, in the case of For Cover as the event documentation of that half-day installation on site.

For SYP then, documentation is recording of what is to come as engagement/exhibition but since it draws on what was/is, it is the recording of an archive in some sense.

Thinking of the forms of engagement for SYP, as per the revised project plan (event series; analogue engagement via shared objects (send out/return); web platform and possibly on site/surrounding engagement; these are then a series of records:

  • a/v recording of digital events; possibly with transcripts too;
  • a folder/record of objects in circulation along with notes on reflection (written, a/v, audio, photographic, otherwise);
  • web platform as accessible at any point; and
  • a similar record to any on site engagement (depending on the nature of this: as event some a/v recording plus notes; if a letterbox drop or similar, the recording will be akin to the one for the analogue objects).

Risk assessments are unlikely to be needed; perhaps if a site-based live event these come into play; otherwise these are postal engagement at a distance. An assistant for digital events and/or live events would be helpful but given my experience also not necessary.

Here, documentation is considerable more logistically and conceptually narrow than how I have so far approached the concept of ‘archiving the site and the work’; the latter poses a number of questions concerning the nature of the work, the time/duration of the work and various access/contact points. These will be explored throughout the remainder of SYP (and likely filter into the events.

SYP 2.1: resolving the body of work

I disentangle an earlier ambitious submission timeline and thus find myself still ‘resolving’. The task is not to resolve a body of work portfolio for an (exhibition) audience, that isn’t it. Rather: I am seeking a resolution in which both BoW and Research move forward as equal components.

In principle, this is already spelled out in the notion of a methodological toolkit as the core of the engagement plan as per SYP 1. In practice, this toolkit requires further refinement, notably as to where the engagement in it sits (in residency applications, in a postal limited edition, an expanded digital platform or, or, or?).

As for the actual body of work, the resolution is far more simple. I have noted it at various points and will revisit here:

Adding Research to BoW padlet to allow for more context

2 June (at the end of BoW 5 report):

We discuss at some length how parts of the reflective writing (either on the blog or from the dissertation) can come to the For Cover padlet to allow for deepening that narrative and contextual/conceptual understanding. I mention the various routes through different material enquiries that I discuss in the findings chapter which could work here and could then also link to the dissertation itself, and thus also letting the BoW link to Research (and not just Research to BoW).

Tutor report 5, Body of Work

AP: to set this up on the For Cover padlet accordingly.

Revising selected elements of For Cover

8 August (when preparing for assessment)

  • re-record the audio for Walnut Tree of Touch (a Potential Blanket)
  • a black screen as visual resolution for its audio file
  • rephotograph slides for Am Walde?

More generally, I was asking:

  • How is the site archived?
  • How does audio relate to the archive?

As far as reworking/resolving existing objects are concerned, these are very limited in what I identified as needing doing.

The set of questions of how these can fold forward towards and engagement format (with the work that is For Cover + Research), these were becoming more ambitious:

The engagement plan for SYP as per end of BoW Module (15 May):

As engagement plan at this moment I put the following forward:

  • site-specificity and on-site installation/process
  • digital platform and portfolio
  • edition of DIY assemblage for distribution
  • publication (academic, artistic)

(see the actual post here, it has a whole range of further considerations as to what, where and when is the site: https://close-open.net/2021/05/21/stromverteilen-engagement-plan-for-syp/)

And then in the SYP 1 Project Plan (15 July):

To present a mobile and versatile PaR, combining the various practices (such as drawing, writing, lens-based and performance work) into elements that can test the methodology of For Cover in different sites and contexts:

  • it will include a digital platform/space to act as an open container that can grow alongside the practice;
  • it will also include a material, analogue, element, such as a small edition set of different self-assemble elements to engage with For Cover across a distributed space and as private performance (i.e. a loosely understood artist book in a box or similar);
  • thirdly I will test the viability to revisit the actual site for a public performance/event in autumn.

As practical reworking of elements of For Cover, I will

  1. not rephotograph Am Walde for the digital a/v presentation: they are good quality digital images and work well as they are in the slides;
  2. will add a blank screen to an a/v of the existing audio of Walnut Tree of Touch (a Potential Blanket), and NOT rerecord the audio: there was a concern over its speed but I find it fitting;
  3. I will investigate further if the existing padlet is in fact a suitable digital platform (in conjunction with the Research portfolio of Stromverteilen):
  • longevity and control over format changes as per platform developer and institutional access
  • precarity of presented material due to lack of control of platform
  • if both preceding points are not in fact fitting for digital distance as form of engagement
  • explore Adobe Portfolio as alternative site (and clarify what it needs to allow for, include in contrast to a professional website in which For Cover sits as one project of many)

<< this work will present the Resolution of Body of Work as per coursebook (i.e. SYP 2)

Further resolution (and why SYP 2 is a more complex body of work):

I wish to consider any concern over various interactive elements such as a limited postal edition or instructive work to be sent out to be returned as part of the Engagement or even Practice as Research, rather than resolution of previous wok.

I also have continued a range of enquiries into contextual distance as well as archiving over the summer and these present research objects or perhaps engagement objects. They will inform my engagement practice and the toolkit.

There is also a range of objects that resulted from the Research module, such as the drawing machines as well as two Cover images produced by the large format analogue pinhole camera, which are effectively part of the wider body of work and will filter forward into SYP (I will write a separate post about these).