as mentioned previously i have been thinking about moving away from blogger [because let's be honest: this page isn't doing either of us any favors], but i keep getting stuck at the part where i have to choose a name. my own name is so clunky & strange but i can't seem to think of anything cute / witty / neat enough to go with instead. if you have any thoughts please let me know.
aside from that, i have been doing a lot of thinking. i have made some decisions. they are, in part:
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to take a photograph of what i am doing every day. this is a restructuring of a project i started in 2008, a few months before i graduated, that i called the beautifuldays project. it lasted for a few months & then died when i started my first real job & got the subsequent depression, but i still keep it going sometimes & it still lives on in a folder on my hard drive.
but so this isn't about beautiful things. this is about documentation. so on that note:
work! studio! ever-expanding Stuff On My Wall!
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to note my feelings every day. a lot of this semester has been spent being swept up in debilitating panic. i feel like as upsetting as it is, there is probably something i can do with it once i can step back from it. this is a similar project to the one above, except i assign each day one feeling or thought or phrase. we'll see where this goes. today is
nearsighted.
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to get a real topic for my thesis.in reflecting on the last two weeks, a lot of my inability to work / make stems directly from the fact that this topic—this intersection of narrative+object+image, that may or may not have anything to do with the physical form or idea of 'book'—is far too broad & undefined to support generative work. it's an umbrella term for things that haven't been created. it's stifling.
yesterday, i was meant to present a written draft of a selfdirected project for our technology class. one hour before the class met i still had nothing. we were asked to consider the theme of 'impossibility' for this project, & since my panic attacks are usually brought on by my thinking that things are impossible, you can imagine how much fun i was having with this as an assignment.
but so i had an hour. i put on my coat & i left the studio. i walked. my plan was to walk to printed matter & to look around & see what sparked some thoughts but as soon as i crossed 7th ave & felt my ears turning red from the wind & cold something clicked. i started writing things down. my notebook says:
flight. it says:
the 5 1/2 minute hallway. it says:
now. now. now. now. i was walked into by a group of teenagers. i was passed by by everyone else. it says:
the impossibility of being invisible.
& i knew i had something but i still went to printed matter & i still looked around & i even saw a few things that i liked & so now my notebook says other things too. i left the bookstore with eight minutes to class & called sasha & talked out this idea.
it's got something to do with camouflage, maybe. or invisibility. not sure. maybe they are the same. the impossibility of being visible / invisible. hiding in plain sight. maybe something to do with social media. if i tweeted my location from a location would anyone find me? what if i were camouflaged? what if i stood out? what do each of those things mean? & i felt good about it so i said it in class & i took lots of notes as people ran with this idea.
afterwards i did a lot of thinking, & with some encouragement, i am dipping my toes in the pool of water that is
Maybe Invisibility Is A Thesis Topic. as circuitous as this all is, i think this new topic allows me to get at the parts of my previous thesis topic that i really loved & found interesting while giving me freedom to move, a cultural background, a historic precedent, & a lens to continue working in.
despite how much i can type on the internet, i am in reality a pretty introverted person. introverts tend to get the short end of the stick in western society (especially american society), & so i have come up with coping strategies. some of these include 'faking it until i make it' in one way or another. there are times they work & times they don't. but throughout all of this, the idea of invisibility is present. sometimes i feel so invisible that i don't exist; other times, i feel safe in my perceived invisibility.
i feel like this can go in a lot of different directions while still staying on-topic, on-theme, & i like that. i think that some of my projects can be retroactively edited to fit with this, too, if necessary, & i like that a lot.
so now i'm trying to work a little in very basic visual terms & come up with a set of projects i want to start working on immediately. it's weird how these things come back! see below a few entries, with the cutout head? i
keep coming back to this. the cutout thing. clearly i have to do something with this.
other things i have been thinking about exploring include: opacity. transparency. the idea of superpowers. the vernacular of the comic form. ghosts (supernatural, sheets). light & dark w/r/t visibility. omission. neglect. power / freedom. personas. public+private. the city's role in invisibility. visibility as not limited to one sense. presence & the lack thereof. participation, as in: all is invisible unless it is seen by someone or something else. filling in the gaps. what happens in the moments when you blink, or are asleep. how graphic design really boils down to the relationship between the visible & invisible.
so i think this is good. it's weird & it's different & it's scary & i'm a little hesitant about it but that's good too.
plus now i get to talk about things that are
fun instead of just things that are serious! i need to build in fun to this project. otherwise it will just be a whole year of panic attacks & i am not ok with that.
