Unit 1 Assessment
Introduction
I am interested in the culture of the web – how people use it, what they create on it and how it affects their understanding of themselves as human. As an original ‘Cyber Utopian’ in the early 90s, I have always envisaged the web as a separate, non-physical world that one travels to. Artist and science writer Margaret Wertheim, in her book The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, introduced the idea of cyberspace as a new type of Heaven- a non-physical space that exists outside of our realm, but to which we can travel and in which we hope to find ‘salvation’. I am interested in the idea of the web as a post-religious “soul space”, where each time we log on, we go on a journey much like in Dante’s Divine Comedy where the journey takes the traveller through Hell and Purgatory to Heaven… we then return back to our world again changed somehow. Only to start the journey again almost immediately. Over and over. Hour by hour. Day by day.
Marcel Duchamp’s idea of the infrathin is useful when thinking about the real/unreal, analogue/digital world we currently live in. It is the space where the real world and the online world meet and are enmeshed. The space is simultaneously real and unreal, analogue and digital. It is where we are living right now.
This space- the infrathin- and the effect of the journey through it on our humanity is what I am trying to find, document, analyse, critique and show.
LO1
Formulate, describe and implement a challenging and self-directed programme of study, relating to your Study Statement. (AC Enquiry)
★ I have formulated and described my self-directed programme of study in my Study Statement. This document is in flux.
https://www.giagia.co.uk/study-statement/
★ An important part of our work is self-reflective writing. The aim is to make sense of processes and problems that may arise. I have written about self-reflective writing within a metamodern sensibility:
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/10/11/self-reflection/
★ A blogpost of notes from a discussion with Jonathan on Action Research, what it is, why it’s relevant to us:
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/10/15/what-is-action-research/
☆ I have been collecting links on my blog – things I’ve read/watched, as well as things I intend to read/watch. They will remain on my links page unless there is something I take out of them as a reference.
https://www.giagia.co.uk/links/
I have compiled Bibliographies of work relevant to what I am looking at-
★ Books https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/10/01/bibliography-books/
★ Films/TV https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/10/01/bibliography-films-tv/
★ Journals/Websites/Etc https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/10/05/bibliography-everything-else/
I have been watching various lectures and lecture series and interviews including:
☆ Timotheus Vermeulen interviewed by Greg Dember and Linda Ceriello for What Is Metemodern?
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/11/02/metamodernism/
☆ Laurie Anderson’s 6 part lecture series for Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/01/25/laurie-anderson-norton-lectures/
☆ Peter Tschekkasky interviews and master class at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival 2014
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/11/08/peter-tscherkassky/
☆ Dante Divine Comedy, 24 part lecture series from Yale University
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/01/04/dantes-divine-comedy/
LO2 – Implement appropriate working methods for building an independent and effective self-organisation that enables the critical engagement with practice-based research. (AC Process)
As I mentioned in my first tutorial with Jonathan https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/11/15/tutorial-15-nov-2021/, “my process is ‘messing around’.” I am comfortable experimenting and trying to find new ways to ‘break’ digital video into its constituent parts.
Experimenting with Video
Trying to find the ‘materiality’ of digital video through repetition.
★ Video test- stop motion failure https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/11/01/video-experiment/
★ Video test – failure https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/11/11/video-test-2/
Trying out stop motion techniques restricting and controlling the light that reaches the camera. (‘Controlling the light’ came out of a tutorial https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/01/26/tutorial-26-jan-2022/)
★ Filtered -more experiments with different shaped pinholes. Added audio. https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/02/filtered/
★ Bowie- only one layer of video, a long sequence, no sound. https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/07/bowie/
★ Double Filter – experimenting with longer shutter speeds. ‘Painting’ with light. No sound. https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/17/double-filter-test/
★ Twister – experimenting with different ‘pinhole’ shapes and techniques. No sound. https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/17/twister/
Experimenting with Images
★ Timotheus Vermeulen https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/01/14/timotheus-vermeulen/
★ Lossy Compression https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/01/10/lossy-compression/
★ Translate https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/12/07/translate/
★ Pinhole https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/11/11/pinhole/
★ Always connected. Always alone. https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/05/always-connected-always-alone/
LO3 – Communicate a critical understanding of your developing practice. (AC Knowledge, AC Communication)
I have been writing about the ideas I am exploring in order to explain them both to myself and to others. Along with my self-reflective blog, I am publishing a few things I write onto a Substack newsletter in order to reach a different, non-Fine Art situated ‘audience’.
https://giagia.substack.com/
★ A brief explanation of Metamodernism. https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/11/02/metamodernism/
★ Looking at how social media changes our personalities and our understanding of who we are as people.
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/01/10/lossy-compression/
★ “‘Always Connected. Always alone.’ was very descriptive of the metamodern condition and also contains the ‘both-neither-ness’ of metamodernism.”
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/05/always-connected-always-alone/
★ A short piece about the real world/digital world infrathin.
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/04/the-porous-border-between-two-worlds/
★ A short piece about the infrathin.
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2021/10/22/infrathin/
★ “Perfection or even ‘near enough’ perfection is destroyed when the real world interacts with the digital world. What happens to Us when we, as material beings, enter into the digital realm over and over again…?”
https://www.giagia.co.uk/2022/02/09/copies/