it's fucked.
(click the picture to see it properly)
tom x
posted by tom at 4:52 pm
Friday, February 02, 2007
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10 Comments:
hello tom. what you mean? a mess does not mean fucked neccessary , then if you using the images has a methphore for your life then shure you can tidy it up...??? or no? x franko
in theory i should be able to tidy up, but i don't have anywhere to put anything. you're right, it isn't necessarily fucked, in some ways i like it and find it helps me creativly, but at the same time it can be suffocating. things get damaged and i can't find what i'm looking for. i meant it quite literally - this aspect of my life is a mess, but i like the way it looks. it's fucked because i feel like it's holding me back and i can't seem to motivate myself to do anything about it, i think because a part of me likes it too much.
Hi Tom, is it not the issue of "organised chaos"? My room looks like that on a regular basis and my friends wonder how I can find my stuff so well in it. another wise person said that it apparently reflects the "state of your soul". Hm. Do you think it does?
When it suffocates me I clean it all up and it makes me feel soooo free - for 3 days or so - and then life takes over again. The creative chaos moves back into my room again. It's a re-occuring circle of life. How to avoid damaging stuff - I think the best way is to wrap it up properly and put it somewhere really safe as soon as you want to put it to the side. Maybe get some large portfolio... or anything else suitable where you can put the stuff temporarily until you continue working on it. At least it is out of the way and safe from accidental damage.
I assume that you are using your room as your working area as well, or? This is always a challenge.
Biggi
it used to be creative chaos, but now it's become a bit stale. there have been a lot of work men walking through it over the last few weeks (to access the pipes in the roof space), so i keep having to clear paths for them, which is very disruptive. i think i made the picture because i was starting to get frustrated with it.
what do you mean exactly by the word 'soul'? i'm never completely sure what people mean by this, i think it's ultimately a religious notion, and i have a problem with that. if you mean the way in which i think, then yes, i think it is reflective of that. living in this way means that i have to use my memory and think a lot. everything is up in the air. i forget the things that don't matter to me. i discover new things and old things that i had forgotten. sometimes it's just too much, and a lot of the time i just ignore it - this is partly why i make art in the way i do (using long, repetative processes in which i loose myself), as a way of avoiding doing the things i don't want to do, but know i should do (like tidying up or getting a job).
if i was tidy, then i could probably be more productive, but it would be much more sanitised, and i wouldn't need to think as much. i think i just need more of a balance perhaps.
hello tom , i think it could be a good idea to tidy up and then take the same photos and put it up , i think it could be intresting . x x franko
Hm,
with soul I actually meant emotional state... something like unhappily in love, depressed...
when my room is messy it reflects only that I am working hard and that in the end I am too lazy to clean up. The state of the room then makes me depressed.
I agree with Franko about taking a picture when it is clean - could be interesting. I found it actually quite interesting as well that you manipulated the picture. It detaches it from reality. Maybe sentimentalises it to some extend. Somehow it looks like a story from the past (black and white - a bit bleached out), is it the aftermath of a crime? CSI is calling. The seemingly treasure chest towards the back of the room seems to open up some romantic pirate story ideas... anyway the manipulation draws back from the cruel face of reality - it beautifies something you are unhappy about. Maybe sticking up the real (un-manipulated) picture on the wall of your room (ideally poster size) - messy as it is - might inspire you too. What do you think?
I think the main important thing is to ACT and not to let yourself down through passivity. x
Biggi
yeah, you're right, i am going to start tidying this afternoon.
there are a few reasons why i manipulated the image.
it creates a degree of abstraction, i like the way that it makes it look more like one continuous mass of things, it joins shapes together. there are things that you can recognise, and things that are ambiguous.
the colour image was very harsh, and i wanted to soften it, i guess i was romanticising it a bit.
also, there's a practical reason - it's made out of four photographs stitched together (that's why there are multiple perspectives - at the bottom i'm looking down at my shoes, and at the top i'm looking accross to the window), and it's much easier to hide the joins when it's black and white.
back to my emotional state - yes, i think it got that way because i was depressed, but i'm not anymore. that's why it's starting to bother me. so , yes, i will sort it out now.
tom. x x x
Tom, when I click on the image, I am told the page is currently unavailable, so I cannot see clearly what it is I am looking at...but from what you ahve posted and conversed with Biggi I understand it is your work/living space?
I am not sure that an actual space is a reflection of a mental space....I am tidy by nature, probably obsessively so, but I am not sure I don't feel fucked....
I am aware that my tidying, clearing out process somehow fits into my practice, in that I can't seem to get on with work until I have cleared a space physically.....
I live with my parents, so my own space is one room- in which I sleep and owrk and spend most of my time when I am not out at work, (as in paid work). When I first moved back with my parents, about two years ago now, the room had orange walls and bright yellow skirting boards, and that in itself seemed like a distraction, a clutter of some sorts. Now I have painted the whole room white, and have put up white roller blinds...so it is quite a neutral space, but I still need to tidy and out away before I can actually get into my work...
What i find really interesting about what you said though was when you said about losing yourself. I use this expression al lot..... I want to lose myself in my work...
When I have used it with people I don't knwo so well, or with people I work with at teh accountants, they don't seem to know what I mean, but it seesm to central to my work.
In making work i do feel like i inhabit a completely different space....mantally and therefore somehow physically too. The work I make does not involve repetitive processes in the way I perceive your work to, but there are elements within my practice that do have that neverending continuous quality to them....(I write in hard backed balck books- writing pointless things just for me, to fill the books, to have something continous to continually go back to)...and despite thinking that maybe they hold me back, I do like them.....because without them...without that continual thing, continaul process to return to, it;s difficult to jump straight into my work otherwise.....
i seem to collect images without consciously doing it- they collect in piles in my room, and every now and then I will look through them and throw some away....I am sure I could be getting on with my work...taking photos etc, but those things are equally important to my practice...for allowing me teh time and space to get my head into the work...
maybe teh mess allows you to lose yourself in your work? maybe it is vital to your practice?
hi katherine.
yeah, i forgot to confirm before that this is my working and living space.
you're right, i do need mess, and i enjoy losing myself in it, but i think the problem at the moment is that i haven't been doing enough work lately, so there hasn't been enough change - i think that, like biggi does, i need to tidy up occasionally and then let it get messy again - it should be more of a cycle. it's become a bit of a quagmire... needs oxygenating.
i think also, i should have been more careful with the wording i chose - i think i will change "my life's a mess" to "my room's a mess". because it's not my whole life that's a mess.
also, saying it was fucked was probably a bit too strong.
i don't know why the picture wouldn't open, hopefully it will be back soon.
xx
evrything about the picture seems to have been said. yes i think too, clear up and let it get messy again and then clear up again.it is a terrible feeling being brought down by untidiness. when i paint and make things, including piles of images, i get that heavy feeling from the paintings and the piles of notebooks and images. that is one of the reasons i stopped painting. i couldnt bnear any more of the accumulation. i love making stuff but i hate have to own it and store it and exhibit it and transport it...it all produces anxiety in me. even taking pictures and having them to look after is a drag, same a s sketches ...everything...my laptop is wonderful i can keep so much in it but i still get that weighed down feelingfrom the files sometimes or if i have saved something in more than one place.
you are right about th eoxygenation things left lying just go stale...same as interesting objects and books you pick up they quickly lose what it was first attracted you to them. it is a contant battle to stay on top of things. i also tend to avoid answering letters or making phone calls and things like that because it makes me nervous.
thre have been periods in my life when this has all lead to states of agoraphobia even. i try to be tidy but stuff just keeps clinging to me like a magnet. not to mention clothes and shoes...
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