1st day back, thinking about writing & objects with Anya 2/10/22

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/11062b_44a48dd0e9d043c8a1c1837e9dfeee8d/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

It was great to see everyone and meet the new ones. After a couple of years of Covid restrictions, it's nice to feel a sense of physical community within the Uni walls.

Anya's session immediately got our writing juices flowing, split into couples, we gave our partner 5 keywords that we felt expressed their work as an artist.

Neil gave me:

Molten

Dystopian

Hope

Materiality

Humanity

I gave Neil:

Political

Landscape

Oceanic

Sculptural

Social

We then discussed our keywords and together created sentences for each keyword:

Molten:

The threads of molten matter coalesce like new connections in the mind or social setting.

Dystopian:

Cinematic elements of an augmented future cast dystopian decortication of identity and character.

Hope:

The prospect of symbiotic success with augmentation created by a hopeful society and the encouragement of mindfulness.

Materiality:

An inquiry into the abundance of possibility that links from constructed metals into conceptual ideas of the future technologies.

Humanity:

Linking desires to embellish in a positive way for humanity's future.

and Neils:

Political:

A modern day socialist can't exist without a 'reebared' concrete foundation in environmentalism.

Landscape:

In search of subjective beauty/experience through a connection with the physical world and a sensual experience within the landscape.

Oceanic:

Finding an extension to our entanglement with the sailing mass (Ocean(ic)).

Sculptural:

Preference for the dimensional physicality of creating a potentially interactive object.

Social:

A serendipitous engagement with people in a social setting.

For me this was a great exercise as not only did it give me an insight into how other people see my work but it helped me with my initial focus on where I would like my work to be going this year. For example I want to edge away from the ontological debate of the pros and cons of an interactive flesh and machine future and concentrate on the idea that inevitably we are going to have to step back and rekindle our relationship with nature and re learn the fundamental enchantments that will help us survive long into the future, a future when technology evolution has broken down from computers and AI back to more simple technologies like building fire and making tools for survival.

In the afternoon we also had a great session swapping personal objects around and thinking outside the box about how to describe objects and make personal connections.