All of which is hilarious as we are rubbish at it - in the way they now tell you too do it: "get an online profile, link into the community, tweet, and you defo need a facebook page..." The Poly doesn't do any of that stuff, although we do now have a more relevant website and of course we do this blog. It might be because we are a bit like the image here or it might be we are cynical, or grumpy, or perhaps we are tired of looking at meaningless memes or photos of people having a 'good time' in rooms.
So why today have i thought about this post which has sit on my to do list for ages.... ? Several things
1. I went to a wedding at the weekend and got talking to a curator friend [who said she's in arts admin as title curator is too over used] which made me think it dont matter how many bloody tweets you do its all about drinking cava by a river and chewing the fat - i cant say who she works for but basically what we discussed was how cliquey and closed the art world is and how looking at online stuff is fine but really its about hanging out and that she would be happy to give me a steer when the next lot of call outs went out.
2. I need some new business cards, yet they seem so anachronistic in the modern age. But i and others seem so happy to enjoy a real thing. This is not, i promise, leading to a post where i celebrate really talking to real people and exchanging real stuff...instead it's about the word business. My sister falls out with farmers for a living and has said her biggest challenge is to get more farmers to see what they do as a business - ie. become more innovative, efficient, profitable. The science and cutting edge research is of little use if people wont even do costings. Now im not saying i want to become more 'innovative, efficient, profitable' which would be nice, but i do think there is something in here about being less romantic about artists and artists getting out of the habit is being service providers. If instead see ourselves as leaders then we have to go to potential partners, have no shame to ask questions and come up with some new ideas for working differently. Only then will the tradition of being 'curated, commissioned and discovered' start to change. Step up, i suppose is what i mean - make yourself visible.
3. I was thinking about rejection. I heard yesterday i didn't get some work and last week the Poly didnt get some it went for and recently I got to interview stage for a Clore fellowship but no further... I reflected on what this was telling me - focus perhaps, improve your interview technique, that its getting tougher out there. My friend Mark would say: celebrate your own worthlessness and you know what that seems about right...........look at the bigger picture say fuck it i'll and then do it anyway.
To conclude, i saw this title: How we learnt to stop worrying and love ourselves recently, i using it for a drawing for the Simple Stories program. But today it seemed right here for this too. We have to stop worrying about not twittering, about not facebooking, about not being visible enough, about not being famous and just love ourselves and as Tim would say make some fucking art!
I am sat editing some footage together of the "Nothing is incidental day" it's a time lapse film and is really documentation I've read this and wondered if I should build a soundtrack for it that makes it more a piece of art but then I thought that would put me on the line a bit- so I've done it anyway - it's snippets from some of the films I thought about on the day - I will blog it here first and we can decide weather to change it for the simple stories site.
ReplyDeleteI did then think of this: “Escaping notice need not be about complacent isolation, mindless conformity or humiliating anonymity.” Invisibility doesn’t mean sacrificing one’s individuality; it only means not having to assert it all the time. In this sense, blending in can reflect a deeper sense of self-confidence than standing out—even if no one else ever knows.
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