I didn’t have anything specific in mind to talk about with Sarah during our 1-1 today, but but I wanted to keep the appointment to hold myself accountable.
- One thing that we discussed is that I have been struggling with the dream review assignment. I think part of this struggle is that I am very hard on myself, and imaging a dream review about something that doesn’t exist yet is so hard. A couple of suggestions Sarah had about this:
- Follow Kat’s lead, and borrow an existing artist statement as a template – slowly changing the words to be more reflective of myself and my own work. I really like this idea, and the slight shift in perspective of looking at an artist statement as opposed to a review is helpful. I think that the review part specifically has been challenging because I’m not sure I care for my work to be “reviewed”. I mean I do want my work to be impactful, and seen by others, but the idea of it being reviewed like high art, or a movie or book feels too scary. I don’t separate myself from my work very easily, and being reviewed for something I create feels like review for myself as a human. There is a lot to unpack there lol, but suffice it to say, I think that this shift in perspective for me was helpful.
- Think about how my work affected a certain group of people. What do I hope for my work to do? How do people talk about Casey Reas and/or Surya Mattu’s work that feels like it resonates with me?
- Some thoughts that came up while we were talking:
- my first motivation in this work is to understand – do I want to build an educational tool? Or am I focusing on elementary-level stuff because that feels more tactile and approachable. When in education do we start to move from concrete/tactile things into abstractions? The moment this happens is probably when I started to struggle more in school tbh.
- Maybe look at children’s book reviews instead of art reviews for the dream review assignment?
- goal: find a context where I want my work to live
- academic use of arts
- find examples or natural phenomenon that is illustration through art
- art as a form of research
- describing the academic space from an outside/3rd part
- this space is really interesting to me, but I am not fully understanding what it means yet
- the project doesn’t have to be one thing, the whole presentation could be the thesis work
- can treat each piece as a mini-project
- and then for the final thesis – how does it all tell a story?
- this would allow me to make a whole bunch of cool stuff
- counter to radio
- are there are critiques about radio
- would be cool to think about both back in the day when it was first discovered and use and also current
- exercise idea: one-a-day or 5 in one day just create some stuff around the idea what if radio waves didn’t exist. Sketch out what this world may look like.
- I started thinking about the book Station Eleven – like how at the end they start to see some electric lights, like thought civilization was gone, it started to come back
- just thinking about this now, but wouldn’t it be cool to create a Survive the [Zombie] Apocalypse kit that includes how to make your own radio, etc
- why do I continue to come back to zombies? 😂🧟♀️
- investigation a future world
- what has is the future of radio in this world?
- I have been focusing my research and thought on mechanics of radio waves, but what other buckets could I be considering?
- uses
- infra
- who maintains it?
- who governs it?
- people/community
- pirate radio
- I think that focusing on the mechanics is where I sometimes get stuck in my research vs creating. This happened with my sunscreen project too. And maybe that isn’t a bad thing, but I also think its a great suggestion to try to think more broadly some too. But I just really want to understand how it works.
- maybe realizing that this is my process is okay, and good, and i should trust it a bit
- there is a phase of deep dive without knowing what the form is, then i figure out the form
- I think these were Sarah’s word, but I have written down: I want to understand the fundamental aspects of the material world
- can I translate this to a more general public
- honestly this resonated a lot with me – this is what i have been doing with my software work as well. like when i write and give talks in that worlds, it’s about taking something complex and breaking it down into a way that is more easily digestible for a more general audience. I think I do this because it’s how my brain works, but when I’m able to capture that and organize that, it becomes something that’s helpful to others too. That’s kind of cool to recognize, and maybe I recognized that with software work, but I am now seeing that it’s a larger pattern in my life. And that’s kind of cool
- Also, as I’m reflecting on this, I am remembering a Christmas where my dad and I were talking about Charles Babbage’s calculating machine, because I was reading The Difference Engine by Doron Swade at the time. And my mom was so over the conversation. Partly because it’s a complex, confusing topic that she’s just not really interested in. Also the fact that my dad and I were having cocktails, and the explanation was kind of Drunk History-like may have been part of it. 😂 But I remember being so engaged and excited, and so badly wanted to explain it to her, because that was helping me understand it better.
- maybe realizing that this is my process is okay, and good, and i should trust it a bit
- We looked at my sunscreen project from the fall semester. And I kind of hate this project now, because it feels like a slide show. But Sarah said to her it felt more like an elaborate NYT piece, like investigative journalist pice. I like that perspective. I’m not sure if that’s the form I’d like this project to take, but maybe that can be one component of it?
- a couple other things I had considered during my sunscreen project were to create a performance of constantly putting more and more sunscreen on – Sarah suggested that making giving that a try if it still feels interesting may be helpful to just get a sense of how performance feels.
- Also as I was chatting a bit about my project with my dad last night, I realize that there certainly are overlapping ideas – my research with both radio waves and sunscreen started with waves on a spectrum. 🤔
- So this physical expression/embodiment of a mechanical idea feels like a cool thing to try
- Sarah told me about Three Transitions by Peter Campus, mostly the 2nd transition feels like good inspiration for my sunscreen project.
- Sarah also told me Vanishing by Gerald Clarke Jr, where he seems to employ a similar technique of covering himself in green paint, and then using a green screen he disappears.
- When deciding to try to make the thing, Sarah suggested I think about: what would it take to do it? Why would I do it? Why wouldn’t I? Taking the risk is ok. Start making.`
- a couple other things I had considered during my sunscreen project were to create a performance of constantly putting more and more sunscreen on – Sarah suggested that making giving that a try if it still feels interesting may be helpful to just get a sense of how performance feels.
- Assignments:
- read the proposal guidelines
- bring a few interesting facts from my research for the next time we meet – this will help bring her (and my future audience) in, and maybe help me articulate my why a bit better
Dear nyu.edu admin, Your posts are always well-supported by facts and figures.