The aims of my research are to examine my own process, and to scrutinise how I set about translating the walking process into artworks. Before I set about making this website, much of my research examined the physical processes of using materials. I looked at how moving the body within the studio becomes part of the thinking and making process. So it was strange to find myself seated perpetually in front of a computer screen, and working within a virtual world. Having said that, movement was still integral to the making in various ways:
Firstly, while making the site I would frequently find myself wandering away from the computer when faced with a problem or issue; usually towards the kettle of the fridge. As a consequence, my waistline has expanded while I was making this site, but more interesting is the fact that when I returned to the computer from the kitchen, I had invariably resolved the issue or problem I had initially walked away from.
I have tried to integrate movement into the website to reflect the movement I made around Dartington, and within High Cross House. I attempted to incorporate the impression of depth by adding penetrable layers, and providing a green return arrow so that a navigator can always return to the threshold of the virtual High Cross House. There is also a 'Through the Hedge' tour which will take virtual perambulators on a circular stroll around the estate.
I have noted for a some time that ‘stepping back to see the work’, is necessary to judge its value from a critical perspective. The making of this site has brought to my attention that I often need distance from the work in a temporal sense for the same reason. I am invariably ambivalent towards my artwork immediately after making it; indeed I sometimes actively despise it. Experience, however, has told me that I need to wait for a few months to really know what I think of it. This is a common trait amongst many painters I know; turning a painting against the wall for months to be able to know if it finished or not is a trick we all share. Examples of the necessity for hindsight in my own recent process are the wax paintings which I hid furtively in my studio cupboard (and now consider them as successful pieces,) and this website which, due to its discrete and virtual nature I had not even begun to consider as a process until nearing completion.
In the same way that the Artist and the Critic need time as well as space between each other, the Researcher in me also needs distance to be situated appropriately. This has implications for future research: it will be important to record my process as I proceed, but that I allow myself to evaluate it retrospectively.
A related issue that arose during the process of making the site, as I slid between my different selves, was the question of voice. I wanted to make a site that is entertaining and accessible to the general public. Finding a voice that examined aspects of theory and described my process without sounding either pompous or trite, was harder than I had imagined it would be. I had several false starts, settled to it in the end, even enjoyed it at times, but was definitely pushed and challenged.
William Kentridge suggests that the studio can be a safe space to set conflicting elements together, to sit with their incongruity and wait to see if they may be resolved. Iain Biggs discusses 'polyvocal drawing' in similar terms. At times, it felt better to just place various elements (different quotes, images or animations) together on a page without trying to explain them, resolve them or weave them together. In this way, this virtual place has very much acted as a real studio, a studio for thoughts and ideas, and still feels ‘live’. At times I have felt as though I have jumped through the looking- glass to find myself in a virtual space, drawn from my own experience, to puzzle over the some of same elements as in my ‘real’ High Cross House studio. But more than that, it has been a very useful tool for research; a place to gather ideas (my own and other peoples') and rest them together for a while.
This site has become a heterogeneous hotchpotch of different textures, fragments and elements to move between and around. It reminds me, structurally, with its fields and hedges, of the chequered landscape of Dartington. I am also reminded of the heterogeneous nature of my own practice, with its varying processes, and also of my own, interior landscape as I encounter my different selves. The notion of trajectory is one that can draw these elements together; not into a homogenised blandness, but as a nomadic negotiation and celebration of variation and interconnection.
Video
There are elements of video embedded within the pages of this site, and I would like them to be watched as little windows within the context of the page, rather than opened to full screen. They are to be considered as magical, moving illustrations, similar to the illuminations of ancient manuscripts rather than films in their own right.
Technology
I do not consider myself to be a technical wizard. I made a decision to use Blogger for this project as I had used it before, and wanted to concentrate on ideas and concepts, rather than learning new software. In hindsight this may not have been the best idea as I have spent a lot of frustrated time chasing text as it jumped about the page, grew bigger and smaller, and generally did not do the things I asked it to. Elements refused to upload, or disappeared all together. However, I have persevered in trying to kick it all in to some shape, to varying degrees of success and, I hope, coherence.
