I am very excited to be back, writing in this little blog that has been up for 15 years now.
Shockingly long and I am in awe that this little thing is still up.
With or without and audience, it has been pretty helpful in keeping a small space open to record small, usually anecdotic thoughts and references.
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Over time I have been very critical of my own practice and work, and I think too many times I have obsessed too much over output and final expectations.
I have become more gentle and forgiving with myself, whilst keeping my expectations high.
However, I still suffer from paralyzing anxiety every time I do creative work...And it can get pretty serious, to the point where I neglect my body, my needs and my routine.
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I have been on a relatively long hiatus where I have produced very little, to no work.
I have had my mind and priorities elsewhere, trying to fix decisions I made in the past that are affecting me in the present.
Recently I got commissioned a relatively large creative project, and I started to feel the crippling anxiety falling all over me again.
I have been working insanely slow on this project so it has been advancing very slowly.
Looking at myself and the way I have worked in the past, I think that the issue is that I cannot work in a way where I have to reproduce a previously agreed-on project outcome.
I find this idea of the final image and the outcome excruciating and it kind of defeats the whole point of working on a project-for me, that is.
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When I was working on creating collections from 2017-2021, I reached the conclusion by the end of it, that I was always creating on the basis of generating design systems, which could create a variety of outputs.
This is clearly an intense way of working on a process-focused basis.
All of my previous research has been focused solely on this, and more intentionally so in the last few years where I think a bit of maturity has arisen from my working methods, and the way in which I arrive to my "outputs".
This is, I have become more self-aware and I have tried to name and engage critically with what I do.
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And so, we circle back to my high-anxiety inducing milieu that I create for myself.
I think I have a small solution that seems simple but I find difficult to implement.
I mean... there are a few scrambled things but important nonetheless...
A) I have worked with people that don't understand my approach and I have allowed them too many times to botch my projects and working methods. I think I need keep it to people who can understand my practice and where I come from. I have to learn to say no and to keep a close knit circle of collaborators.
B) Because my work is intensely focused on the reworkings of the definitions of disciplinary boundaries, the critical questioning of the disciplines themselves, and the working methodologies, productive processes and products of those disciplines... I inevitably have to engage the academy, theory, that is. Something that a lot of artists are allergic to, because if you pick more than one book, it might turn too heavy...
C) Some people, specially when I have worked with workers in the creative industries-specially in the industries that have an industrial background, always have this apprehension for finding the image. They always sit in horror when looking at my text filled research books...They had no time to read, let alone to understand.
And again, this goes against my working ethos of defining processes and methodologies as design, rather than obsessing over the output. Call it definitions, or call it rules, constrains, etc. This almost obsession with process sits pretty bad with these type of people.
D) As part of my thinking for breaking down complexity, I have always tried to implement the identify, prioritise and atomise rule, to be able to break down complex tasks when it comes to a productive process or as part of the activity of foregrounding an outcome.
I think the reason I get chocked up on the way its because I forget to honor process, which is the natural way for me to approach a project. There are many reasons, but setting up the proper theoretical and material structures for the production of an item-let alone for one that has cultural value...it turns out expensive and resource intensive, specially for someone that has no intention to scale that production system up.
Of course there are ways to make production cheaper, but we run the risk of running on the perilous zone of mediocrity, or a badly finished piece. My worst nightmare and my biggest enemy. If I try to do something that its close to art and something that is so close to my heart, then I run the risk of hurting my self-worth. People call it ego, but I think its even worse than that. Its like the big monster of shame pointing to you your incompetency publicly. Or even worse, disrespecting a craft, peoples time and attention. In sum, I think this is the most important aspect. I want to honor the subject that I am handling, and I want to honor the craft that I am part of. I want to honor its history too and propose a new set of eyes for that chosen subject.
E) Paradoxically a lot of the differences in the practices from one discipline to others, is not so much the foundational productive processes that characterise every single one, but the context in which they are displayed, their meaning, location and commercialisation (all in all, how they operate). So to put it briefly, most of it is context.
Coming from this discipline-based arena, it is hard not to get caught up in this realm of names and territories, and forget about the project at hand, which entails the production of new creative outputs. This is the danger of sleeping to long in the rooms of Academia, but when well used it brings walls down to generate new thought processes and novel neurological pathways. It can unlock imagination when approached with naivety.
I think to end it here, it is important to remind oneself that we should allow ourselves to create without labels in our head. To stop thinking about which discipline our work falls into and let our work evolve and speak for itself. Of course this is insanely difficult to achieve in the context where we live in, as spaces that provide with that lack of definition is almost impossible to achieve. Almost like an unscripted, free space where you can create without limitations. This must be the true locus for creation, the place where the new can emerge. Where definitions are created to bring old ones down, and physical manifestations point towards new realities of thinking, living and behaving. Ultimately, this is the sign of a great piece of work. One that has the ability to gift you new eyes.
[FREE SPACE]
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F) Flooded in this chaos of contradiction, I have become softer to myself, and nicer to the imaginaries that might or might not emerge in my head. The ones that I have tried to bring with so much effort over the course of my life. It is genuinely strange how crippling and hard it can be when you don't allow yourself, or when you can't get to the point where you can be creative and express your ideas and worldview. I think this has also been a very big source of anxiety for me. The idea that I might not be able to get to a point where I can create and express so many of these ideas for one reason or another, while I try to survive.
But again, I have tried to practice compassion towards myself and others, whilst also having an affinity for detachment and dispossession for all thigs material. And this has done me well.
In this dry, cracked landscape I thought to embrace all of my conflicting identities and practices that can perhaps shed a light on my practices hereon: research-based design art performance...and so here it ends with a compromise for open-endedness