New Work...

As a professional-crastinator, I have decided to write about work rather than actually doing it. That works right? In all honestly, it usually helps me to plan things out and put my thoughts down on paper so i guess that's what I'm doing here. The short and skinny of the situation is I have three projects that I need to be getting on with and another I need to keep at least at the back of my mind. With that in mind here are my thoughts on these projects:

All of these Things: This project is my first book. I fucking loved writing my dissertation; the only part I didn't like was that it had a deadline. All of these Things is going to be a series of short (~2Kwrd) essays on the inane babble I like to prattle on about to anyone and everyone who will listen. The only difference is I will finally be able to research each of the areas properly (possibly conducting my own studies where circumstance demands, which I'm looking forward to) and get my opinion on them backed up by some more facts than the same ones I find myself regurgitating more and more recently. Some of the chapters I have already thought about and will be things like 'In the Intrest of Fairness, Rather than Fairness Itself', 'Sanity in Numbers', 'Human Centricity' amongst others. The chapter I have started working on in the last week is something quite important to me and outlines the specificity of language. I am yet to work out the methodology yet, as if I continue writing undoubtedly other chapters will pop into my head as I get the creative juices flowing; I was thinking of stopping coming up with chapters in about 6 weeks to limit myself from writing a tome of drivel.

Human-Centricity: A photographic outing. Yes. As I'm sure you're aware I like photographs so it seems more than appropriate that I have a project in that area. This is a project I've been thinking about and photographing for maybe the past two years but not in any official capacity and now is the time to pick up the pace. It's aim is to examine and reveal the very self involved nature of humanity as a species. I don't want to give anything away but I'm hoping it will have elements of juxtaposition of expectation, a series that I've always wanted to do on crowds and maybe a third facet which I am yet to dream up. This is hopefully going to go into a book but all the ins and outs are, obviously, yet to be finalised. This endeavour will probably take me at very least a few months, possibly a year but that is nowhere near as long as my next project will take...

Catalogue: I have always loved typological photography. The work of August Sander, the Bechers and of course Ed Ruscha has always struck a chord with me. It aims to make sense of an increasingly disordered world in essence. Now, this is the point at which I should probably tell you this project will take me the rest of my life. When I say it will, I am one hundred percent certain of it for the pure and simple fact that I shall never release it while I draw breath. In fact, I won't be the one releasing it at all. The plan is to bequeath it to someone along with instructions for it. Writing this down (as I mentioned earlier, it helps me work things out) I now realise why I am doing this, and I hadn't before. Catalogue, may very well be my legacy; I've always wanted one of them, something which lives beyond me. However, that particularly old philosophical chestnut is a whole other story which I will come back to at some point. Moving on to the subject of the work, the more astute reader may now realise why this will take me the rest of my natural born days. The subject matter is everything. And. I. Mean. EVERYTHING. So far I have series' on keys, bins, benches, houses, kinder egg toys, people and, surprise surprise, petrol stations. 

Collaboration: The notion of collaboration has always excited me. The perspective differences and compromise that comes through reasoned debate which is inherent to work just floats my boat! In my opinion all artistic mediums need an element of reflection to progress (using myself as an example- look at the difference between 'Twenty Six Gasoline Stations (Around Sunset)' and 'TwentySix') I have had a chat with a fantastic young lady who has just graduated from Portsmouth University who seems keen on the idea of at least getting together and throwing some ideas around. She was on the same art foundation course as me at RSA@ESC and her work was incredible and has only got better so I am naturally very excited about it.

So there we have it. Putting my thoughts together like this has actually really helped and I feel like I'm a lot clearer about what I have to do because it's not in this cloudy, changeable, ethereal haze in my head any more...plus I've occupied myself for forty-five minutes. That's all folks!