23 March 10

From now on I am going to use dates to organise my thoughts. Right now what I should be doing is pulling apart what I am reading, doing, thinking and being inspired or influenced by in order to map my creative practice and its emergence. So on that note here is a collection of random thoughts, hopefully when I look back on them in a week or two they won't look so random and I can start to follow the strands that will emerge from them and map where they are taking me:-

MUSIC

Music will always be on my list as its a massive part of who I am and my creative influences. Right now LCD Soundsystem, The Hold Steady, Temper Trap. DJ Shadow. Dr Dre.

Dre and Shadow are back in my life and particularly Shadow has been a revelation hearing Entroducing again after many years. Dark, mysterious, hard to grasp and beautiful its everything I want my art to be. Dre well his latest album shows me the benefits of sticking to what you do. Integrity. That's important to me. Been a while since I have heard any great jazz but right now I am looking for something that tells me something through language, engaging with the text (without text) but with vocals. I want to hear music that has something to say not just bubble gum. Serious. I guess that's why I go back to the Hold Steady and others like them like Springsteen. Darkness on the Edge of town is a haunting and beautiful and sinister reflection. I should listen to it more.

FILM

Turning my crank right now:

The Hurt Locker

I've been thinking about explosions for a while now. Not sure how to approach them in my practice but something more about the aftermath is emerging. For example the aftermath of an explosion that indicates that something has gone before which is left to the imagination but also points towards something that might happen next. I am not thinking about carnage of human wreckage and death but more about the changing of form between say a car before and after the blast. I am not sure if I am interested in the 'event' of the blast or maybe some idea of time that is represented by the before and the after e.g car before and car after. What I am trying to approach is not clear but I want to follow that through more.

I have no idea why explosions have been coming to me or the idea of them, I guess it seems a natural progression from the fire work - both destructive. Not sure, more is needed here, interested to see where it goes.

READING

Not much. Art in America keeps turning up for some reason - the world's most unreliable subscription. Art Forum. Nothing jumps out at the moment from them but I know I have to engage with other people's artistic practices so I am going to start watching the Art 21 series so I can report on the outcome of that.

Going to re-engage with Lyotard and see if this time when i get into it I can give it anew reading and pull out some different interpretations.

Going to try and order a few books from the QUT library.


ARTISTS

Again not much. I started off with such a thirst to find the artists that inspired me I feel I have to start that process again as I have all but over-exposed myself to those guys so I am not sure where to start to get into some new ones but maybe this doco series will help.

SHOWS

Lacking bad, I am about to book a flight to Sydney to see the Olafur show and set aside a day to go see the APT in Bris. Not much else comes to mind that is worth seeing, now that my cousin is back in Taiwan I should see what is going on there as the last time i was there i saw some fantastic modern work that really inspired me.

MY WORK

Spending Saturday working on the car piece so that should be good but I need to start thinking about smaller scale works like models or just something that conveys what I am on about that i can do faster. Got to give that some thought and come up with some more options.

INSPIRATION/WHATS ON MY MIND

Death. Dying. Renewal. The usual, its always on my mind in some form and really the more I work through it the more I realise that is what my work is about, it always has been, I really must articulate it more and will do so here starting now.

CHALLENGES

Dan has got me thinking about how I might incorporate what I call the excremental left overs of my work into actual works. How my pile of burnt scattered rocks and left over destroyed and half destroyed stuff might be part of the 'work'. Good question but I think it might have something to do with the idea of renewal/eternity/infinity maybe that is why i am drawn towards using objects that have had a previous life, to really show them in a new way and to show them taking on new life like a rebirth of the spirit of that object. Actually this is really quite important and explains a lot and ties in well I am going to have to follow this through. By choosing objects that are dead and discarded but re-animating them with new life I am doing something but what it is exactly will need more thought.
Turns out that has actually been a bit of a breakthrough tonight.