Blog VII

First of all I want to say that it wasn´t my purpose, at all, to be negative about my process, but I´m fully aware that that was how it came through. Anyway, what I ment by saying that I had been being disaheartend wasn´t so much about the project itself as it was my own shortcoming by not coming to any clear conclusion or decision what to do with my project, at one point in time especially.

You are given a task, and somehow or other you have to make that task your own. It was there I was struggling. I found out, in the due course of time, that it was important for me to find my own true expression, something that I could stand up for. I couldn´t move away from that. Finding the balance between technic and performance was another important angle. Looking back in hindsight I might have done some things diffrently, though, but on the whole I´m quite satisfied with the result. The decision to make the photografs into a still film (and black and white for that matter) was an idea that just popped up, as well as the idea to record the voices of the dog owners, because of my not beeing able to fully master the technics in photoshop (not in the foreseeable future anyway). Also, I felt I had to synchronize the pictures with the windy sound. That´s why it all ended up as it did.

An interesting aspect that one or two of you came up with regarding the cat, during the presentation, was the question of alienation as well as the thought that the cat in fact was refering to myself. As I said I had had those thoughts myself, but my own conclusion is that the cat itself, in fact, is the onlooker; watching from a distance. I myself, though, can imagine how the cat is pondering over the scenario: "What is happening?"; "What are they doing, it´s my hunting ground!"; or "Are they taking over my hill?"; or "What about me, where do I fit in?"; and "Oh, well! Let them go on, who needs them."; or "I find another place"...

I am of the strong believe that people deal diffrently in the process of creation. For some it´s more hands on, maybe in a playful way, while others are brooding and pondering before they even find it worth while beginning to create something in real. I belong to the latter category. It´s about transformation, letting the idea or subject have time to fructify. For some it come easy, for others it come harder, but that doesn´t make the process less valuable. It is just different ways of approaching the same goal.

How is it possible then to pass judgement on or mark (grade) someone´s efforts? Those are questions I have come across at school during my education. Common questions that art teachers have asked themselves. Because, who is deciding what good or bad art is? I? You? What are the criteria? On what ground do I stand? Let´s go back to Thursday afternoon and the discussion that went on at the end. I think what happend was that people felt that, maybe, their art work had been "attacked" rather than the presentation itself. I do think that all of us, though, believe that it is important with feedback be it negative or positive. It helps you grow.

I´m ending with the end of the artist Ernst Billgren´s book Vad är konst? (2008) (What is Art? My translation.) Question number 117. Vad är konst? Kort svar: Ett sätt att tänka. Långt svar: Om man förutsätter att vi tänker med språket så är konst ett sätt att tänka på saker man inte har något annat språk för. The translation is like follows (my translation): Short answer: A way of thinking. Long answer: If you presume that we think with language, so is art a way of thinking of things you do not have any other language for.

See you!