#coursework2019

Brevity is the Soul of- is a piece that demonstrates the struggle for the artist -or really for anyone- when dealing with the constraints of time. While I am acting in the scene I spend the entirety of the piece setting up and then taking down. When we set out to a project there is so much time that goes into not only physically starting but also mentally preparing oneself to work. Often times this “readying” duration results on one being pressed for time and sometimes finding themself out of it. I spend all my time setting up, prepping both my area and myself, only for my timer to go off and for me to then have to begin the clean up process short of having actually accomplished anything. While one in a sea of complaints to the structures and bindings of time that proves unconducive to work this work is still relevant as the problems persist both in and out of the academic setting. Over and over we are told that our ‘petty’ grievances are ubiquitous and characteristic of the ‘real world’ and slowly by this we are conditioned to follow regime and structure. One of these structures is time and we are all slaves to it. We live our lives and schedule our days around things like deadlines that are framed in windows that simply cannot happily accommodate that which is expected to have been produced within them. This is to say nothing on the nature of how some days are simply more productive than others for no explainable reason, ‘least not explainable to an official satisfaction. This is potentially a struggle without solution as life is unpredictable and so even if there weren’t deadlines and predefined durations there would still be those things that come up and interrupt the creative and working processes. Even isolation wouldn’t work as there are things internally that would keep one from maintaining a consistent working pace. Interruptions are inevitable but whether or not they can simply be moved past or if they bring the entire process to a halt define this struggle for those who just need the time to work. As this statement is for the class I will also address some of the choices I’ve made regarding my final result. I chose not to go with having multiple timers as the timer was to clearly punctuate the transition between my time to work and my time to clean up and go. The timer only sounds twice to act as the transitory tool to change the scene and then as a second reminder that I like everyone are controlled by time. I felt that by having more alarms going off and silencing them I was delaying the inevitable which, while a similar idea, shows some manner of control over my environment when I am supposed to be directly affected by it and be powerless to just how much time I have. There is no snooze on some deadlines and while having multiple alarms is a neat idea it doesn’t really match with what I wanted to say.

This piece is a revisitation of an earlier piece RailsAtMetro (https://youtu.be/DYrxkm7OOH0). While the original piece was following the assignment of walking a straight line over something it became a comentairy on a situation I have found myself and others encounter: getting trapped on the access ramp at the Aurora Metro Train Station only to realize -after running eight times the distance- that there is a much quicker set of stairs. This revisit returns to those stairs and to the villainous ramp only now, while I know the stairs are there -even after using them a few times- I openly choose to climb down the ramp railings as I had before. There are many things that we as humans get into trouble for or suffer embarrassment over simply because we did something that we knew better than to do. Why then did we do it in the first place? Assuming that the individual isn’t a complete moron and was operating deliberately against what they should do: what small victory therein can be found? Now that I’m not scaling the ramp to get somewhere but am doing it despite the superior decision -what do I stand to gain? Is that even the point?

For me life feels like a constant uphill battle. Some who share this sensation seem to take pride in their accomplishments and their participation to continuously trekking up their own staircase. I however find the process a bit redundant: constantly working one’s way up while keeping your eyes on the ground and for what? There may be a plateau at the top where there’s nowhere to go, there may be a descent of ease and luxury after all your work, or there may be more stairs to climb until you can’t climb anymore. Then where will we be?

Question: Honestly what is being said here makes sense, and in theory it all works; however, in reality there are loads of things that we’ve lovingly named pet-peeves -and while mine lend themselves to be more along the lines of pet-hates- are there things we’re allowed to decide matter to us when we know full well that they don’t? A sort of paradoxical indulgence like having ice cream on your cheat day. Is this ‘dao of the un-fuck’ completely infallible or is there catharsis to be gained from sweating the small stuff?

Question: While disrupting the establishment is all well and good how does one find that sweet spot of being insightful without being abhorrent; be an object of action rather that abjection? Can there be more than one attitude to this form of art - can there be the subtle and sly where there is obviously the boisterous and blatant?