Welcome To Flight School

As Rakim once said, it’s been a long time…

And in the interval since I last wrote this blog, one of the things that’s most occupied my thoughts is the concept of time itself.

Yep, I’m starting with an easy topic today!

Toward the end of last year I was lucky enough to participate in the PILOT III programme run by Autograph. It was a genuinely transformative experience, surrounded by incredibly inspiring practitioners and supported by expert facilitators. During the process, I was challenged to reconsider the work I’ve been making by the idea that time is in fact circular, not linear.

Being introduced to this idea sent me tumbling down a rabbit hole that’s still occupying most of my creative thoughts many months later. Ever since being captivated by the adventures of Marty McFly as a kid, the idea of time travel has always fascinated and perplexed me.

If I could travel back to the past or way into the future, which would I choose first*? Which would you choose? I’m sure many of you have asked yourselves this question at some point.

But what if the future and the past were instead all accessible from the present, existing in the same temporal plane, knowable by simply expanding your awareness beyond the narrow limitations of linear time and the oppressive inevitability of never reaching your future?

Once I started exploring these ideas, I realised how culturally-dependent our notions of time are, and how in fact there are numerous concepts of time that happily co-existed for many ages before our current paradigm became predominant.

“How do we memorialize an event that is still ongoing?”

— Christina Sharpe

Reflecting on these ideas has changed the way I’ve approached the work I’ve been doing with my childhood images and how I’m thinking about the story I’m telling. It’s really interesting to reconsider the wistfulness I mentioned in my last post through the lens of a different appreciation of the passage of time and an alternative view of the connection between my past, present and future selves, and so the work has taken another turn while I continue to wrangle these ideas like someone trying to contain a flock of unruly hens on a treadmill.

I challenge you to Google ‘circular time’, read the first few articles, and not be dragged into the same rabbit hole that I’m currently trapped in. For a really good introduction to alternative concepts of time, I would recommend Jay Griffiths’ excellent book Pip Pip.

Jay Griffiths’ excellent book Pip Pip

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”

— Michael Altshuler

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While in this process of reassessment it’s especially pleasing to have been selected to show some of this as yet unresolved work at the forthcoming New Art Exchange (NAE) Open in Nottingham. The exhibition opens on May 20th and runs till September 23rd. I’m excited to be amongst the 44 selected artists and it is set to be a really interesting show. I’d urge you to see it if you can.

Some of my work from No Way Back From Where I’ve Been will be on show at the NAE Open

In other news, the Night Moods exhibition that I curated with Shutter Hub has just under a month to run before it comes to a close. It’s been an incredible experience putting this exhibition together, and I’m really proud to have been able to showcase night photography in this way, something that’s been a passion of mine since I bought my first camera ten years ago now.

You can read some more of my thoughts about this project here and you can experience the exhibition itself, here. Fingers crossed that I can take on more curatorial projects in future.

I’m also happy to have recently been awarded DYCP funding by Arts Council England to spend dedicated time developing the writing element of my practice. This is a significant milestone for me and will hopefully, at the very least, result in these blogs being a bit less painful to read!

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I want to leave you with a few things that have been interesting or inspiring me recently.

the creative (Apologies to all the other artists who do this whose idea I’ve clearly stolen, but I’ve made so many creative discoveries by following these threads that I feel it’s justified…you can thank me later!)

• I really enjoyed reading The Creative Act: A Way Of Being by Rick Rubin. A great way to refocus on why the pursuit of creativity matters and a reminder to keep the main things the main things.

• Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is a must see for people like me who grew up loving the work of the man behind Marty McFly. Also worth watching for an insight into the way Parkinson’s disease affects people, and the way people respond to and live with progressive and chronic illness.

• This live performance of Stakes Is High by De La Soul (and The Roots) was legendary. After you’ve watched this, do yourself a favour and go ahead and listen to the whole Stakes Is High album (then the rest of De La’s discography, which is now available everywhere!). The fact their music has now been opened up to new audiences is one of the best things about this year so far.

Till next time…

*future, 100%!

Getting Used To Getting Less

To those of us who spend possibly more time than we should contemplating the way the world is, and not quite enough time simply diving feet first in to the ever-changing quotidian tide of life, the last couple of years have thrown up a number of additional points for consideration. Towards the end of last year I wrote a piece for a forthcoming publication based on a topic I’d been thinking a lot about since the beginning of the pandemic. I re-read that piece again this week and felt I’d done a less than superb job of articulating what my concern actually was and so, dear patient reader, I’ve chosen to inflict my second attempt to explain myself on you :)

In the early phase of the pandemic I was struck by how quickly we all became totally dependent on technology to mediate our connections with each other. These technologies were already available and in regular use of course but as events forced us indoors, often alone, we all had no choice but to download Zoom and adapt. Former technophobes were unmuting and hopping in and out of breakout rooms with masterful ease and it seemed that, on the face of it, the circumstances were at least encouraging more people into a more connected online life that would ultimately be enriching for them personally, as well as ushering in new ways of working and methods of relating to one another for all of us.

At this point many will agree that this has indeed been the outcome, will happily chalk it up as yet another success for the modern world and move on to more pressing concerns. To those folk, thanks for popping in…

An image from the Reaching Out Into The Dark project

I’ve long been interested in the way people experience being alone, particularly in urban settings and as the first lockdown stretched out like an old elastic band and the concept of time itself seemed increasingly pliable, I couldn’t help wondering whether this precipitous adoption of remote communication technologies was an entirely wholesome phenomenon.

The idea that the inexorable reliance on computers or artificial intelligence might not be all good is not a novel one. Academics and authors such as Sherry Turkle have challenged the propagation of this computerised utopia for many years, and these questions have also provided endless hours of cinematic material in movies such as The Matrix and I, Robot.

And while I’m certainly not trying to slap you across the face with the notion that communication technologies will singlehandedly herald the demise of humanity, I would raise a tentative hand to ask you to pause for a moment and consider how these technologies have impacted on your own relationships and your sense of connection to others.

Any commuter on public transport will be familiar with the experience of being surrounded by people, all mesmerised by their individual devices, oblivious to those around them (Or maybe you aren’t, which possibly also proves the point!). If you live in the average town or city you no doubt spend significant parts of every day slaloming around urban zombies who shuffle around heads bowed, entranced by their phones. Maybe these people feel hyperconnected, and thus unable to tolerate even a momentary detachment from their device in order to let the world and their immediate surroundings in via their other senses. They might even argue that they’re actually optimising their presence, making use of every possible moment to connect with someone or something and that the fact that this may seem to exclude people in their immediate vicinity is simply a quirk of geography.

This is the story the technology companies would have us believe, that our lives have been immeasurably improved by the ever closer integration of their software with our daily rhythms. That our addiction to their products is a surrogate for our innate desire to be closer to those who are meaningful to us. Viewed this way it’s impossible to be critical, because who would rebuke someone who just wants to be more connected to their friends and family, right?

But perhaps the counterargument rests on an appraisal of the gap between the quality of the connections we crave and those we manage to achieve via these communication technologies. In her book Alone Together Turkle argues that one of the dangers of increasing remote communication is a progressive sense of disconnection that makes achieving sincere or meaningful communication much more difficult:

"Texting an apology is really impersonal. You can't hear their voice. They could be sarcastic, and you wouldn't know.”…”It's harder to say ‘Sorry' than text it, and if you’re the one receiving the apology, you know it's hard for the person to say 'Sorry.' But that is what helps you forgive the person - that they're saying it in person, that they actually have the guts to actually want to apologize." In essence, both young women are saying that forgiveness follows from the experience of empathy. You see someone is unhappy for having hurt you. You feel sure that you are standing together with them. When we live a large part of our personal lives online, these complex empathetic transactions become more elusive. We get used to getting less.

Alone Together, 3rd edition, p. 234

If we are ‘getting less’ meaningful connection with others as a consequence of the shift to online communication methods, what can we do about it? Is it even a problem, or simply a function of progress in the same way that we came to rely less on horses to get to the shops after the introduction of the motor car?

My instinct tells me that this shift increases the risk of loneliness, even as the means of being connected to others proliferate. A range of people who depend on more than just instincts to make their pronouncements would also agree (phew). My ongoing ruminations about this idea - how our changed relationship to technologies due to COVID-19 has affected our ability to connect with each other - will form the next unit of my Reaching Out Into The Dark project and I’ll no doubt keep you updated in future posts.

I’d be keen to hear your views on this…what are your own experiences over the last couple of years? Does any of this ring true to you? Or do you feel that communication technologies and devices are inherently neutral and thus cannot be held responsible for anything other than the performance of the function for which they were designed? (Also a valid point of view)

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Two other bits of news…

I’ve now set up a mailing list for those discerning people who want to be kept informed about what I’m up to. Thanks so much to those of you who suggested the idea and encouraged me to start one and to those who’ve already signed up. I am grateful for the support and to have you on board and I truly value the interactions and feedback these posts generate. The responses and counterarguments really help me further develop my ideas and I’m thankful for the stimulus to keep wondering. If you’ve not yet signed up but would like to, you can do so on this page.

The image below has been selected by Shutter Hub Editions for publication in their forthcoming collection ROAD TRIP, that explores the question ‘what does ROAD TRIP mean to you?’. The book should be available later this year and here’s hoping there’s at least one picture in it of a child screaming “are we there yet?” from the back seat.

And so we arrive at the end of another update. The only thing left to do is to close with a song (hehe, no I didn’t forget!)

Till next time…

Research/Life

One of the reasons I decided to write about my work in progress in this way was to affirm (and remind myself of) the fact that the reality of the creative process is rarely of a brilliant artist working singlemindedly towards the production of a widely-acclaimed masterpiece, but rather a quite normal person, who cares about something, battling various practical and financial obstacles in order to bring into being a piece of work that, in the majority of cases, nobody else cares about at all, with the progress towards this objective being anything other than a straight line. 

Thinking about this brings to mind the wise words of Wendy McMurdo, an actually brilliant artist, who I was fortunate to be tutored by in the final phase of my MA. During one of my many existential crises she calmly informed me that the numerous issues and problems preventing me from making work that I was describing to her were in fact simply part and parcel of being an artist, and that the associated self-doubt and uncertainty were all part of the creative process. Her advice being that I should basically suck it up and make work anyway because that was the only way anything ever got done, the only way any progress was ever made. Coming from her, these words meant a great deal and have stuck with me ever since. 

So, I write to remind myself of this and also to keep myself accountable and it is in this spirit that I make this latest entry in the WIP log. The last few months have of course being challenging for everyone, what with the rona, and life as we knew it seems to be gone for good. I’ve been overwhelmed with work stuff and also had to survive my own bout of the virus, so it’s been a challenging time for sure. Amongst all this though, I’ve tried to stay committed to the idea of continuing on regardless, as best as I could under the circumstances. One of the lessons I think, is that instead of being hard on yourself for not being as productive or creative as maybe you’d hoped to be in certain circumstances, it’s preferable to stick to your guns and just do what you can. Every little helps and with each small step you’re that bit little closer to the end goal. It’s important for me to remember that there never is a ‘perfect’ time to make work, with absolutely no obstacles or distractions to contend with, there’s always just now.

As I’ve continued planning and researching for a project focusing on mental health, there’s been an inexorable convergence with the themes of Reaching Out. 

I recently had the opportunity to talk a bit more about the making of ROITD over on the Shutter Hub blog

Loneliness and solitude certainly offer psychological challenges, but it’s been really interesting that I’ve found myself circling back round and being forced to consider loneliness from new angles. Another lesson perhaps, that research is never wasted even if it seems to be not directly related to the topic at hand at first, and a reminder that my MA work lives on, and remains unfinished business. 

I’ve been reading A Biography of Loneliness by Fay Bound Alberti. Looking at how loneliness has been conceptualised, written about and experienced through history, it’s an ambitious work indeed. Interestingly, Alberti starts from the position that loneliness is not intrinsically bad, and that there are positives to be gained from experiencing this state. Describing loneliness as a ‘cluster of emotions’ rather than a single feeling, the author argues that it hits differently at different life stages such as divorce or old age. Alberti also argues that loneliness is not an inevitable or universal aspect of the human experience, and when encountered can also confer benefits such as increased self-knowledge or creativity. 

It’s fascinating to consider that loneliness has not always been with us, simply because the vocabulary associated with this experience did not exist before about 200 years ago. Prior to that, being alone was not at all bound up with typically negative ideas of loneliness that we take for granted today, but rather considered a much more neutral state of being. This idea is really interesting to me, that how we describe or think about things, materially affects the way we experience them and it’s an interesting idea to explore visually in the future.

Another book I’ve covered recently is Advice for Strays by Justine Kilkerr. This is an interesting story, about a woman going through a difficult time who’s revisited by an imaginary friend from her childhood, returned to accompany her through her troubles. This friend, a lion named Jericho, appears when things seem to be slowly falling apart in her life, and while their relationship is never fully explained, there quickly develops a seemingly mutually beneficial co-dependence. The key theme that resonated with me here was the idea of perception, of being able to ascertain what is real and what is not, and whether sometimes it’s actually easier, even safer, to surrender to the constructions of our minds rather than address difficult things in the ‘real’ world. The idea of spending so long immersed in your own perceptions that you struggle to differentiate between what’s real and what’s imagined is also interesting. How does one categorise experiences that can seem very real to us, and from which we may derive some positives, if they are not perceptible to others…are they any less valuable, less real? This boundary between our tangible material world, and that of our very personal, internal world is a fascinating place to explore.

What’s New?

Despite not being outwardly productive in recent times, I’ve been quietly plotting some new work. In addition to this, I’ve also been fortunate that the work I started during my MA has continued to generate discussion and act as an opening to new opportunities. 

One of these opportunities came as the result of some images from ROITD being selected to be shown in the first exhibition of Shutter Hub’s ambitious new project. Postcards From Great Britain aims to share visions of British culture through photographic images and promote connection and debate. The images include social, political, observational, historical and traditional responses and when the project finally closes, at the end of this year, the submitted work in its entirety will be archived and housed in various significant collections worldwide. 

Images are presented in postcard format, depicting visions of British life

The project will be punctuated with exhibitions throughout Europe, the first of which opened this week and a happy coincidence of my work schedule allowed me to nip over to Haarlem, just outside Amsterdam, to attend the exhibition opening. It was good to be there and I was happy to be able to meet a number of the other exhibiting artists and discuss how they work. These connections stimulated a couple of promising avenues for future exploration and possible collaboration and I’ll expand on this in future updates. 

Attendees at the exhibition opening in Haarlem

Apart from enjoying the short break for the opportunity to see the exhibition, I was also able to get out for a quick photo walk and the mental space of being away also allowed me to continue planning for the main focus of this year, which will be an exhibition of my own work in collaboration with selected artists, later this year. 

My own research for this is ongoing: I recently finished reading Catch by Simon Robson. The book centres around Catharine (referred to as Catch by her husband), a wife alone at home on a winter’s day while her husband works away in Birmingham. She is bored, self-critical, over analytical, aloof, over-serious, frustrated by a lack of musical talent, envious of other more frivolous/artistic/bohemian people, embodied in this case by her friend Masha.

She is also, evidently, dissatisfied by her inability to have a child with her husband Tom. 

Cover of Catch by Simon Robson

The writing is often overly elaborate, to the detriment of the narrative and the revelation of character. However the author still manages to depict an unraveling, a sense of quite rapidly losing touch with oneself and the certainty of circumstances that previously anchored you in place. Catharine quickly loses touch with her sense of self, caught up in an accelerating cycle of thoughts, careering towards the dissolution of her marriage, the destruction of her longstanding friendship with Masha and to the relinquishing of her sanity, triggered by innocuous events such as a conversation with a disaffected teenager in the village and some low level flirting with a retiree.

This feeling of being captive to self-destructive thoughts, apparently founded on ‘fact’ that one is mistakenly convinced of, felt very familiar. This negative feedback spiral can be a very lonely place, where you feel increasingly hopeless, convinced of the futility and finality of everything, and almost unable to listen to reason. This is something I will be exploring in the work that I plan to show later this year.