Winter In A Big City – intentions and reflections

One of the biggest questions artists/art students face today is “why should we still be making art?” The history of art is so rich, it can be overwhelming to the point of paralysis, is there anything more left to say? I feel the only thing we have to offer is perspective. Our stories, our worldview, our flavour of art. By focusing on the personal, I’m cutting straight to the point – what separates me from other artists is my perspective.

What you focus on, the materials you use, the form you choose and the presentation – decisions that are down to the creator, isn’t that what we’re ultimately receiving? A glimpse into an ego?

I’m trying to find my style/voice through sticking with an idea – I’ve been using fragmented editing all year. All the separate videos I made are part of a continuous process. With each one, I took a different kind of risk, the lessons I got from them fed into this film.

Perhaps this view is in alignment with an autobiographical attachment (people focus on an artist’s history too much). I’m talking about myself not for the sake of it, but because all I know is what has happened to me, I’m just expressing. Some of its autobiographical, some of its fantasy, who the fuck knows where the line is drawn when memory and imagination come into play. Mix that in with the elusive, ever-fleeting desire, and multiply it by time and space – you get a weird cocktail that hopefully tastes good (though taste is subjective anyway, but that’s a whole other story…)

A downside is maybe I’m being too selfish (a persisting issue), not considering the viewers enough. If so, it’s not out of a stubbornness, or a desire to confuse, or not caring about audience. It’s more that I’m aware of the fact that I will never see myself or my work from outside my body so this is an experiment in trust – following hunches, following an increasing drive/motivation/desire.

I hope that if viewers are trying to piece things together and figure it out, that it’s an interesting process. It’s not about coming to a conclusion, it’s about expanding understanding through the experience of perception. It’s about the process, which is another reason for choosing a time-based medium – a film takes you step by step, scene by scene, frame by frame.

You can argue that the same process can happen with a painting or photograph, but the artist cannot control the sequence in which the viewer receives information – you can’t control which part the viewer sees first. I wanna take you on a journey, not give you the destination. Social considerations drive my work, but I don’t want to focus on one specific cause, I believe it can be a lot more universal if I just focus on expanding people’s understandings.

As a third culture kid, my perspective is the result of many perspectives, which I think increases the ability to empathise. I don’t see a better way of expanding perspective than by sharing my own. It’s like giving a friend advice – if you give the solution to an issue upfront, in literal terms, they won’t necessarily understand it. You need to give people a story of your own, an analogy, for them to apply to their own issue. They figure out what to do in their predicament through understanding how you got through yours.

After collaborating with Holly (https://vvval.wordpress.com/summer-assessment/), I jokingly said we could live the manifesto we wrote next year. Turns it it wasn’t even a choice. Whether it’s just that we articulated beliefs that still hold true today, or that I subconsciously followed it – it doesn’t matter because ultimately, I found use in my own work, which is the best feeling!

Take, for example, the scenes where I’m acting, not filming – I gave Sien the responsibility of shooting. We came up with shots through the process of filming. Certain shots were more planned than others, but most of the time the aesthetic decisions were made in the moment of filming.

Finding functionality in my own work makes me hopeful for future, because that’s what I want to be doing, making art that helps. My approach isn’t to oppose or destruct previous movements, its about embracing the sides of the existing ones that I resonate with/enjoy/think are useful today, combining them, and letting that mixture drip through the filter of the self.

I hope my work reflects all of this by nature of being a product of my body/mind. These are my thoughts, the work is the work, I hope they are one and the same, each an expression of the other. Judging by the crit in week 7, I underestimate the clarity of my work because my peers understood everything, they even saw more.

Maybe the style of the film doesn’t look as fun as my other experiments (eg Skype Happenings), but I really enjoyed shooting it. This follows an idea I had at the end of last year – the process of artmaking is for me, the outcome is for you, for your benefit (enjoyment, entertainment or turmoil, whatever, as long as there’s something).