[NetBehaviour] Re: Discussion on Jason Nelson's Residency...

[marc]

Hi Jason & Netbehaviourists,

Just thought that I'd mention that when some of the questions started 
being sent to you on this list, that you were probably tucked away in 
bed, dreaming of residencies, residencies, residencies...

 >I was afraid if I didnt pick someone their feelings might be hurt, 
their ego stilted. Sadly, I am sure I left many many great talents and 
friends out of the residency. I just didnt want to only do the well 
known, the regular posters, I wanted to bring others in from other areas 
of my life. Hence the Niece and Nephew, the Davin Heckman, the 
Strickland and others. In addition, the residency was a way to say thank 
you to some, while accomplishing
another goal.

Which is great because when viewing your selction of artist's work as 
source material - we also got to see other people's/artist's work as 
well, which opened it up contextually...

 >Perhaps my greatest fear in creating with  other's work, was the 
annoyingly resilient phantom thought that they would think it sucks, 
that they just didnt like it.

A very human reaction to such a situation - I come from that school of 
thought that a residency is also about taking advantage of possible 
option(s, exploring and touching on areas that one would not normally 
delve into, regarding one's usual form of practice, which can be 
traumatic and enlightening at the same time. Just by taking part in a 
list residency, changes the whole dynamic and relationship of the 
artist, the work, the audience, possible collaborators etc...

 >as if I was invading someones home and using their bath towels and 
reading their daily calenders. Or perhaps a better description would be 
pulling the
salt from a baked cake.

In the original answer you talked about the application Flash. I would 
like to delve deeper into why you are using the application another time 
perhaps, but for the moment I think that it is relevant for to ask 
something else regarding the statement above.

The published results each showed compositions consisting of 
multi-narratives on many levels, mainly your own as well as the original 
narratives/ideas.

Was the experience of making it, about stuff?

What was more important to you - their content or your content?

 >And as far as precious resource. Fortunately I dont think many of 
those who agreed for me to use their work, thinks of their art in that 
way. That is the beauty with digital bits, there are no real originals. 
So I wasn't corrupting the original, but simply building something from 
the clone of the original. The other benefit is that however their 
writing or images or sounds were presented, the readers know the context 
of the residency and that any wackiness or changes to the 'resources" 
were created by me and thus any crappiness or missed context or whatever 
was not of their doing.

Personally, I would not bring such a term as 'corruptin'g into this 
dicussion, like you say people agreed to have their works used as 
resource material for the residency and it has created an interesting 
set of works that are contextually fascinating, and a valuable dialogue 
has come out of this fluid act - yet, intellectual authenticity might 
wander into it...

the meaning changes when someone else takes over the reigns and identity 
of a work, the intention becomes something else. This of course may seem 
obvious to some and yourself - one begins to realise how valuable other 
people's voices are out there, not just in art. This complexity is 
fascinating because, usually a concept usually needs to be refined to be 
communicated well.

So a psychology is at play - on one level it becomes about other 
people's work and your work at the same time, a merging of ideas and 
creative crafting. Depending where one is coming from, but keeping it 
based on your residency - a type of value or signifier is telling me 
that it potnetially moves into a realm that suggests that, it is less 
about ownership and more about the activity itself, the process of 
creation is equal to the final result of the work that is seen. All the 
resources are known, already layed out, already deconstructed - not out 
of nowhere...


marc





Marc and all,

In response to Marc's question below:
MARC SEZ: [[Jason, I would like to know what elements effected you and what
you found was to be different, when working on other artists' materials,
went through your mind as you went through the process of using such a
valuable and potentially sensitive resource?]]

MY RESPONSE: JASON SEZ:
I went through sways, these periods of confidence and insecurity. At
first I was very worried about simply getting enough material. I was
worried that I would
need, be forced, grab other's work, without consent (which I did a few
times anyway), and how that might offend those whose work I corralled.
But luckily there were heaps of volunteers, and others who agreed
beforehand.

This however created a new problem. Who to pick. I was afraid if I
didnt pick someone
their feelings might be hurt, their ego stilted. Sadly, I am sure I
left many many great talents and friends out of the residency. I just
didnt want to only do the well known, the regular posters, I wanted to
bring others in from other areas of my life. Hence the Niece and
Nephew, the Davin Heckman, the Strickland and others. In addition, the
residency was a way to say thank you to some, while accomplishing
another goal.

Perhaps my greatest fear in creating with  other's work, was the
annoyingly resilient phantom thought that they would think it sucks,
that they just didnt like it. After a few days there were these
expectations for how each residency creation would be different and
uniquely involve the base materials, the images and text of others.
And I knew those whose work I used were looking forward to seeing what
I did. So, unlike those poems we throw into envelopes in exchange for
rejection slips a few months later. There was an immediate response,
one that I dreaded and impatiently waited for. And even when the
comments were good, I still found some negative or 'not as positive'
to emphasize.

Originally I had intended on using the loadMovie command for most of
the creations. Basically I wanted to pull other's SWFs into an
interface, without changing the work, simply pulling in a url and
having it work with I built. Unfortunately most of the SWF urls sent
my way were to big (file size) to use with any speed.  So I used a
decompiler, to rip apart the swf and yank out the sounds and images
and even actionscript from the published file. Honestly, I hadnt
realized how easy this is to do, and it was a bit strange, as if I was
invading someones home and using their bath towels and reading their
daily calenders. Or perhaps a better description would be pulling the
salt from a baked cake.

And as far as precious resource. Fortunately I dont think many of
those who agreed for me to use their work, thinks of their art in that
way. That is the beauty with digital bits, there are no real
originals. So I wasn't corrupting the original, but simply building
something from the clone of the original. The other benefit is that
however their writing or images or sounds were presented, the readers
know the context of the residency and that any wackiness or changes to
the 'resources" were created by me and thus any crappiness or missed
context or whatever was not of their doing.

Hmmmm....I dont think I answered the question...alas....next I will
answer the place location inquiry...which was one of the great
surprises with this experience.

cheers, Jason


>Marc and all,
>
>In response to Marc's question below:
>MARC SEZ: [[Jason, I would like to know what elements effected you and what
>you found was to be different, when working on other artists' materials,
>went through your mind as you went through the process of using such a
>valuable and potentially sensitive resource?]]
>
>MY RESPONSE: JASON SEZ: 
>I went through sways, these periods of confidence and insecurity. At
>first I was very worried about simply getting enough material. I was
>worried that I would
>need, be forced, grab other's work, without consent (which I did a few
>times anyway), and how that might offend those whose work I corralled.
>But luckily there were heaps of volunteers, and others who agreed
>beforehand.
>
>This however created a new problem. Who to pick. I was afraid if I
>didnt pick someone
>their feelings might be hurt, their ego stilted. Sadly, I am sure I
>left many many great talents and friends out of the residency. I just
>didnt want to only do the well known, the regular posters, I wanted to
>bring others in from other areas of my life. Hence the Niece and
>Nephew, the Davin Heckman, the Strickland and others. In addition, the
>residency was a way to say thank you to some, while accomplishing
>another goal.
>
>Perhaps my greatest fear in creating with  other's work, was the
>annoyingly resilient phantom thought that they would think it sucks,
>that they just didnt like it. After a few days there were these
>expectations for how each residency creation would be different and
>uniquely involve the base materials, the images and text of others.
>And I knew those whose work I used were looking forward to seeing what
>I did. So, unlike those poems we throw into envelopes in exchange for
>rejection slips a few months later. There was an immediate response,
>one that I dreaded and impatiently waited for. And even when the
>comments were good, I still found some negative or 'not as positive' 
>to emphasize.
>
>Originally I had intended on using the loadMovie command for most of
>the creations. Basically I wanted to pull other's SWFs into an
>interface, without changing the work, simply pulling in a url and
>having it work with I built. Unfortunately most of the SWF urls sent
>my way were to big (file size) to use with any speed.  So I used a
>decompiler, to rip apart the swf and yank out the sounds and images
>and even actionscript from the published file. Honestly, I hadnt
>realized how easy this is to do, and it was a bit strange, as if I was
>invading someones home and using their bath towels and reading their
>daily calenders. Or perhaps a better description would be pulling the
>salt from a baked cake.
>
>And as far as precious resource. Fortunately I dont think many of
>those who agreed for me to use their work, thinks of their art in that
>way. That is the beauty with digital bits, there are no real
>originals. So I wasn't corrupting the original, but simply building
>something from the clone of the original. The other benefit is that
>however their writing or images or sounds were presented, the readers
>know the context of the residency and that any wackiness or changes to
>the 'resources" were created by me and thus any crappiness or missed
>context or whatever was not of their doing.
>
>Hmmmm....I dont think I answered the question...alas....next I will
>answer the place location inquiry...which was one of the great
>surprises with this experience.
>
>cheers, Jason
>
>
>  
>