Translation Show / Progression

I thought it would be a good idea to try and examine how my ideas have progressed this term, and evaluate whether or not my work is communicating more effectively.

This cross-stitched piece was playing with the idea of humans being conditioned to feel the need to "do something." Just "something," purely because the alternative (doing nothing) is something we're conditioned to feel guilty about. It's intended to speak about not speaking, and say that there is nothing to say. It's not "art" that has a "point" or "purpose"; it's an object created for the sake of creation. It deliberately ignores the idea of fulfilment, instead focusing on the idea that life has no intrinsic meaning, and so our actions are "meaningless." I don't think it's bad that it intentionally ignores many logical perspectives; essentially it's a tongue-in-cheek description of one point of view. It's deliberately a little bit illogical. It doesn't intend to convince other people of its point of view; it intends to present that point of view in a way that highlights that it's mildly amusing. It examines my thoughts and actions and describes them, not intending to convince or justify.

This deals with the same sort of ideas - productivity for the sake of productivity, and doing things for the sake of doing things. It speaks about the perceived importance of doing something every day. You "have to" get up and you "have to" shower and you "have to" eat, but it's not limited to basic needs. There is apparently more than that, and even if we don't know what that means for ourselves, we supposedly have to at least make a vague stab at it.

(Translation Show piece, sitting with other people's.)

The piece I made for the Translation Show is where I feel like the communication sort of falls directly on its face. It refers to the idea of investing time into something for the sake of artificially creating some idea of "value." It's cross-stitched because that medium is incredibly slow, and not widely considered to be that aesthetically pleasing compared to other methods of creating images. This makes it seem inefficient, and it seems like its only appeal is how much time is invested into it. The medium has "value" BECAUSE it is slow. Its value is its own inefficiency.

"In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the less is its value; and vice versa, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is the labour time required for the production of an article, and the greater its value." (This is from Das Capital.) Certain materials have value because extracting them is inefficient. Certain objects have value because the process of creating them is slow. In the case of an image created using a slow method (an image that could have been created more quickly in another medium, and that would have served the same purpose in this other medium), the image's creation is a process that INTENDS to use up a large amount of time.

This piece was a "translation" because the intention was to wholeheartedly explore the medium, creating images in the traditional way. The flowers were supposed to convey an attempt to be beautiful, and I framed it since it was about futility with conviction, not apathy. This point ended up being muddled by the fact that I left the needle in. I was unsure whether I wanted to leave it slightly unfinished to emphasise the tedium, or finish it to reinforce the point of futility with conviction. This is another reason I framed it instead of mounting it; I wanted the decision (to leave the needle in) to be reversible in case I changed my mind, and I think I have.

There is a lot I don't like about this piece. It starts to refer too specifically to the habits of middle class women decades or centuries ago - women "filling time" as they did not need to work. This is not what I am interested in, and it's not what I'm researching. However, I think this is a side-effect of the instruction to "translate" the work, so maybe it's okay that I pushed things out of my comfort zone all the way to the point where the work catastrophically fails.

Another way this work fails is that it aims to communicate the idea of pouring lots of time into something, but it looks like something that didn't take very long. It did. Even I don't believe how long this piece of shit took me. The medium is actually TOO effective at being tedious and time-consuming, so my point gets lost.

It also feels less sincere than my previous work. I think this is because it drifts away from observing and describing my own habits, and speaks about a hobby that other people (who are not me) have. It feels slightly mocking, and that was not the intention.

Current Structure Of Dissertation

intro - consider changing

pattern that rituals follow

example of habits following the same pattern

another example

another example

explanation

argument against

another argument against

another argument against

conclusion

Notes On Whether Or Not My Practice Is Still Relevant To My Dissertation

Yes:
- activity is presented as being a ritual to ward off negative feelings associated with futility, and therefore fits the pattern argued in my dissertation

No:
- activities referred to in practice are daily "productive" tasks (e.g. art, crafts), and not either "bad habits" or religious/spiritual rituals
- the idea that my practice communicates is intentionally biased (i.e. it ignores the idea of "fulfillment"); it is supposed to be from a specific point of view

Conclusion:
- the two things were more connected when I was making work that related to hoarding etc.
- maybe I could expand my dissertation to include the role of everyday activities/fulfillment/meaning, but that would make it too broad as I would then literally be examining the meaning of life, and would have to discuss everything from fulfillment and stewardship/legacy to religious views on the afterlife

Notes On Inefficiency

"In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the less is its value; and vice versa, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is the labour time required for the production of an article, and the greater its value." - Karl Marx, Das Capital

If we think about how this applies to non-essential objects (say, embroidered art work), we could argue that since a medium requiring less labour (for example, through the use of technology) could arguably serve the same purpose, the maker of the work is intentionally being less efficient for the purposes of adding to the item's perceived value.

Maybe an argument against that is the idea that certain techniques cannot yet be successfully replicated by technology, but then again maybe that argument is only used to attempt to back up with logic the idea that hand-made objects are intrinsically superior.

Essentially, I feel like we pour time into things for the sake of pouring time into things.

The Turner Prize, Late Turner And Efficiency

I've realised that my days of spending at least five hours in every "major" exhibition (this was a habit of mine during my foundation course) are long, long gone. I don't trust curators with my time anymore. I went to see the Turner Prize and basically walked past everything time-based; I didn't feel as though I had a reason to give them a chance - it would be gambling, but with time instead of money. This means that although I'm supposed to be an "art student," my opinion fell neatly into one of the three categories that the guest's comments on the notice board outside the exhibition seemed to be split into.

1. My five year old could do that.
2. Ugh, it was all film.
3. OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, why are all these comments knocking time-based media when it's a perfectly valid art form?!?! Film is my liiiiiiife. :'(

I guess what I can take away from this is the idea that I really haven't looked into why people use film: what's it supposed to do? IS it supposed to do anything? Then again, I'm really valuing this newfound EFFICIENCY; I've stopped forcing myself to observe and analyse everything until it's torture.

I then visited the Late Turner exhibition which was pretty packed, presumably with all the people who left the (almost empty) Turner Prize saying, 'What rubbish - they shouldn't call it the "TURNER Prize..."' I made another observation regarding efficiency. It's more an opinion than an observation.

Whalers at Sea at Sunset

Paying attention to colour and composition is a whole lot more important than sinking hours and hours into a piece of work. EFFICIENCY.

(The work I'm making now is about pouring time into something to illustrate inefficiency.)

Translation Exhibition Proposal

My work deals with the idea of futility and useless labour – the idea of working “harder, not smarter” (as opposed to the other way around) as a way to overcompensate for feelings of uselessness. I will make something in a medium that requires both time and extra learning.

Aesthetics

In my last tutorial, I was asked why I would bother considering aesthetics (e.g. cutting and rearranging the fabric so that the title was the right way up) if the piece were supposed to be purely about filling time. I have decided that I'm still going to rearrange the piece when it's done and make it look "finished." This is because I'm not trying to communicate the idea that futility justifies apathy;* the idea is more that the inconsequential nature of human lives makes it equally valid to consider any activity to be a "good" use of time,** and this can be reflected in the way it's displayed - neatly and on a wall, as if it's an achievement.

*I would probably have chosen a different medium (crayon?) if this had been the case.

**This is not exactly what I mean to say. I think I might be repeatedly flip-flopping between "everything is useless" and "no of course that can't have been what I meant."

EDIT: What I meant to say is that I'm not trying to communicate futility; I'm trying to communicate the illusion of utility. This makes it more appropriate to properly "finish" the work.

Things I Am Not Doing

I think I'm reaching a point in my work where I'm starting to clarify that existentialist angst is not what I'm making work about. I feel like counting down to death has been done before, and can only be done so many times before it's just repeating the same point. This is because it almost seems to be the default way of seeing "life" once someone slips into a place where the concept of enjoyment is foreign and unknown.

From the point of an atheist,* life has no intrinsic meaning. From the point of an atheist capable of enjoyment, life does not need to have any intrinsic meaning; they enjoy it, it feels worthwhile to them and there is no need for it to have any kind of objective, measurable value or "mean" something other than what it is. An atheist who has stopped enjoying things will be more likely to fixate on life's "point" or "meaning." Life as it is just seems like a series of events that cause other events until the end; it is all inconsequential in the end. This is where that statement comes from - the one that confuses happy people everywhere - "life has no meaning." If someone has not experienced any kind of enjoyment for a long time and has forgotten about it as a possibility, or remembers the concept but feels it is impossible, life does not only have no intrinsic value; it has no "point" whatsoever. If the "journey" has nothing at the end, and we can't or don't enjoy the journey, what's the journey for?

This thinking seems to basically be the default for someone experiencing lack of fulfilment, at least for the first time. This can include anyone from people with depression who have stopped feeling pleasure to people who have just started their first nine-to-five job and are not enjoying it ("I studied all these years just to go to work and come home over and over again every day until I die").

Since I see this as a default way of thinking for people in a certain situation, it is not something I want to repeat when it has been done so many times before. I've already realised that the piece I'm working on is ridiculously similar to several On Kawara pieces (the work I was familiar with was something else - the "I Got Up" series mentioned below).

On Kawara - I Got Up - 1970

Martin Creed - Work No. 223 - 1999

(After repeatedly venturing back and forth from the state of mind where "life feels meaningless" to the state of mind where "life needs no intrinsic meaning if you're gaining fulfilment," going back to the former point of view is no longer frightening; life FEELS meaningless. It's all just perspective and it's enough to notice that other people are still enjoying it to no longer feel terrified.)

I think the next few things I make will clarify that I'm not making art about counting down to death or about life being futile, and I think maybe people will stop calling me a nihilist. (I might be talking about FINE ART DEGREES feeling futile, and I might also be being hyperbolic.)

*I am only mentioning atheist points of view as non-atheist points of view go into "life after death" as life's "meaning," and this is irrelevant to my point.