Firedive Trailer



Last September I went out to Guernsey with David Angus and Tim Bowditch to work on the production of Tim's film, Firedive.

Well,  now the real work has started. Jonathan Gales is sorting out the editing for us. Sound tracking the trailer was a good test of the recordings I got while I was over there. I think we going to be ok.

Enjoy.

Applications

I'm writing several funding applications at the moment. This post is a both a way of thinking about the process of applying for things, and also a way of taking a sneaky break.

When you apply for funding to make new work, your function as an artist is reduced to the hypothetical: what you might do in the future if you are given some money. Strangely enough, I find it easier to write applications if I use the future progressive tense (I will), as opposed to the future conditional tense (I would). It shouldn't really make much difference, but it feels more definite when I write about something I will do, rather than something I would do.

Also, for the proposal I am writing at the moment, I am representing the ARKA group, which means I can use 'We' instead of 'I'. Again, it shouldn't make much of a difference, but it does. If I write 'we', it feels as though the decision has been made for me, like it is more objective (or at least inter-subjective).

Actually, my favourite way of writing applications is using 'The ARKA group will', instead of 'We will'. This makes me feel like I'm the head of a secret institution that uses art as a way of influencing governments. That makes me feel more able to make complex theoretical statements and connect ideas that seem strange or unlikely.

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Often, in applications, I use this blog as an example of my self-reflexive practice, and the way that I try and apply critical thought to every day life. So, just in case any of the funders are reading this, can I just reassure you all that I am not the head of secret institution that uses art as a way of influencing governments.

Poetry makes more sense/when quoted and/put between slashes

I subscribe to the London Review of Books, and it publishes new poetry, which I never read. But when a writer quotes poetry I'm always desperate to read the rest of it (that I never actually go and find the rest of it is perhaps quite telling).

It is the sense-making that I am looking for. I want to understand the poetry, rather than admire it.

More and more I find art is about clarification and description (even if the description or clarification is of an unreal thing).

I am just about to give some tours for the Hayward Gallery, of the British Art Show. I think my tours will be about the act of storytelling, and how for the artists in the BAS it seems like storytelling is analogous to the process of making art.

I see the process of talking about art to be analogous to the process of making art, and I also see a big part of talking about art as telling a story - talking about discontiguous ideas as if my words could connect them

For me, description and interpretation are another form of artistic production. So really, when I'm talking about the artists, and the way they use storytelling to make art, I'll also be telling a story. And when I'm talking about making art, I'll also be talking about talking about art.