What is next?
Right, that is the question. I love that my piece was performed. I am happy with the experience and the feedback I got from performing it. Thank you for the opportunity. I feel I messed up by taking my whole time on the piece and responses to it, when I should have engaged in some critical readings. You have mentioned that I should get deeper into art/New Media criticism. Where should I start? The “theory” I have studied is music theory (to an absolute extreme) and at grad school here “film theory” which I found to be severely lacking in many ways. I don’t really even know what theory comprises of. If I were to choose a book to study from right now it would be Visual Perception. But, I don’t know if that meets what we are looking for in this class, I think it isn’t what Craig is talking about.
My takeaways from the piece, a self reflection (or what I learned about myself to be applied to the future):
- Performance, necessary for me. I can’t ignore my musical history.
- Myself, I don’t want to separate myself from the art, I will be part of it.
- Score, functions as an additional layer of art, refines the idea greatly and serves as a durable artifact.
- Scope, I would rather create numerous small works than one huge one.
- Minimalist, simple ideas that lead to complex questions.
My interest in this piece, upon reflection, was more based on performance and minimalism than biofeedback.
So, the question becomes what do I do for the rest of the semester.
I can think of two good paths:
1) See a single project through to the end.
Take one of my works and complete all the necessary paperwork, networking, and preparation to get it placed in a gallery. I know that I will want to have works presented in museums and galleries, but I haven’t really made it there yet. The experience would be an important one for me and would help me as I continue to complete works. As I create a series works, getting in the habit of seeing them through to a public conclusion is, obviously, essential for my success as an artist.
2) Develop some necessary technical skills through completing a few small projects.
My work tends to have a digital component, and I would like to be able to present installations. I need to develop skills with microcontrollers and electronics so I can create durable control surfaces and audio video playback that can work day in day out unmanned. Currently I have been relying largely on laptop computers and my control surfaces are flimsy and obviously home made (you saw my “robot” performance and the cheesy arduino control surface it had). This just won’t work for me in an unmanned installation.
I guess I don’t absolutely need a response from you, but this is where my mind is at right now. I completely respect your experience and opinions and your feedback is always spot on. I also want to make sure what I pursue is in line with the class objectives.
Thank you! Sorry for the long post (a bad habit of mine).
-Loudon
VM 604 
September 12, 2013 at 11:36 am |
The short answer to a long post is both 1 and 2, I think. Where critical theory is concerned, we are looking for shorter works, maybe a few pages, perhaps excerpted. Entire books will overwhelm the group. All of you should be developing a bibliography for your thesis, right?
September 12, 2013 at 5:13 pm |
AI, can you please expand on the bibliography as part of the thesis? I am not yet developing one, but it sounds important and interesting.
September 12, 2013 at 6:22 pm |
Yes, Your thesis work should be seen as a research project, even though you are doing production work, so a bibliography is expected and required. Think of it this way, twenty years from now you are famous or dead, and a bright young art historian is writing her dissertation on the turn-of-the-century New Media avant-gaurd in the U.S. She comes to Boston to research your work in the Emerson library archive. She is going to want to know how you came about your ideas, who you were reading and what influenced you. Remember, this is about contributing to collective knowledge and creativity.
September 12, 2013 at 6:36 pm
Also, should we compile a small set of references for each of the many pieces we create? This seems logical, as then we can easily apply metadata and establish each work as part of a specific artistic lineage. I guess I am trying to develop the process that goes around a piece of art I create. So for every work I should have ____: Picture of it, Title, short excerpt about it, long writing about it, website page to display it, references of related work(?)… what else? If I have a checklist of “necessaries” then when I create something I just put all these things together in a folder and I am good to go. As my goal is to create numerous small pieces a checklist and process is essential and developing it will be an important part of this semester’s work.
September 12, 2013 at 6:33 pm |
Got it. I think this is what I started with this site when preparing for “As a clock”:
https://sites.google.com/site/mutiplicityandcontinuity/
In this bibliography, should we be including specific comments on how the reference is influencing our work? Should we include our own criticism of the reference?
September 12, 2013 at 5:29 pm |
If I am to follow both paths my semester objective would be to create at least 2 additional small pieces of New Media artwork and bring at least one work to completion, to be presented in a gallery space. I should design these pieces as small but significant artistic pieces and technical stepping stones, so they should include limited but significant applications of microcontrollers. This seems an ambitious goal for a semester, what does the group think?
September 12, 2013 at 6:10 pm |
Sounds reasonable.
September 12, 2013 at 6:15 pm
Thanks AI, I will start developing ideas and a production schedule for the rest of the semester.