Summer Experiences
I'm back from London, taking a break after a hectic, but fun summer. The idea was to spend September working on my own projects rather than concentrating on pushing more commercial work, but that seems to have gone out the window, so still chasing and working away on several projects, must find space to work on my own at some point.
Summer though has lead to several interesting experiences, and it's experience that I see myself moving towards in terms of work, but the most satisfying experiences have been though work related projects but personal experiences that I wanted to be part of, just to be part of them.
The big one of course, was The Treehouse Gallery Project. I've talked about this before, so I'm not going to go back over the details. I got involved through Dougald, and after spending more than a few days there quickly became embedded. I even got to stay behind after hours, and spent a few days helping with de-construction. It was great to live communally and experience that lifestyle, and have the opportunity do be involved in such an extensive project, and use it to branch off into doing workshops and projects from it. I think what was different from previous times I've got involved with groups, in that I was actually there to be part of the experience, and for my own interest, I wasn't studying them, or trying to ask questions for 'research' purposes, which usually just makes me nervous and appear as an obvious outsider. It was great, I actually got to be involved, seeing very different sides to the project than just a normal visitor. being involved and experiencing new ways of doing, working, and living. It was also great, as it meant working tangibly, not digitally (though I did sort of become the unofficial documenter given the size of my flickr set). It was great being part of (and accepted) into the sharing community, I wish good luck to the guys on the next adventure (and look forward into how I might be able to be involved).
As for the two projects I was involved with ('How to Travel the World for Free' and 'Collaborative Scroll') , they went off great. I'm going to conduct a post project review of them both in a later post (hopefully), though I think there are definitely learning experiences from them to draw out, again it was the experience of doing them that mattered more in the end than the end results, though lots of interesting things came out of them too. Running a workshop in an ad-hoc organised and improvised way actually worked really well, and some great insights from the two guest speakers I found (Sarah Haq and Vinay Gupta). I have some great audio that I recorded that I need to edit and is on my to do list. Collaborative Scroll came out well too, think the reading bit could be planned better, but again it was an improvised experience, and a learning curve. I think I'm going to try and catch up with Dougald about improvisation, i think there are definitely some useful discussions that we have had before over it, and how that might have helped the scroll project (and be useful for next time). In the mean time, this is what Dougald has to say about impov in conversation with Lloyd.
Away from the Treehouse Gallery, the other major experience was early August. I went along to The Sandpit Hide and Seek Fest. I've become intrigued by the idea of play, and gaming in general. Again, rather than being someone there to study it, I was going to be part of it, and to have fun. I played a good few games, really enjoyed 'Property of a Traitor' which involved a group of us trying to decode a dead spies belongings to diffuse a bomb, and the other games where all fun too, being able to be part of a different realty set for a while, and develop new stories and ways of looking at scenarios. The only real issue I had here is that I did seem to spend a lot of the time photographing, and the time I really enjoyed myself, and got the most out of the experience was in getting down to it and playing. I think that is another post to add to the list, the importance of play and storytelling in my work, something that has been there for a while, but I never quite realised it was there.
Well, I'm back away from London, and my plan is to go in and out for a while. There are a few events I want to be part of still, I also want to try and spend some time connecting to the Birmingham based networks as well, now that they are close by. I still have to decide where I want to be based, the idea of having this (sort of) break is a chance to reflect on the past year post RCA and the different things I have been doing, both commercially and otherwise, and just how commercial I want to take my self, or how many other experiences I want to pursue.
Summer though has lead to several interesting experiences, and it's experience that I see myself moving towards in terms of work, but the most satisfying experiences have been though work related projects but personal experiences that I wanted to be part of, just to be part of them.
The big one of course, was The Treehouse Gallery Project. I've talked about this before, so I'm not going to go back over the details. I got involved through Dougald, and after spending more than a few days there quickly became embedded. I even got to stay behind after hours, and spent a few days helping with de-construction. It was great to live communally and experience that lifestyle, and have the opportunity do be involved in such an extensive project, and use it to branch off into doing workshops and projects from it. I think what was different from previous times I've got involved with groups, in that I was actually there to be part of the experience, and for my own interest, I wasn't studying them, or trying to ask questions for 'research' purposes, which usually just makes me nervous and appear as an obvious outsider. It was great, I actually got to be involved, seeing very different sides to the project than just a normal visitor. being involved and experiencing new ways of doing, working, and living. It was also great, as it meant working tangibly, not digitally (though I did sort of become the unofficial documenter given the size of my flickr set). It was great being part of (and accepted) into the sharing community, I wish good luck to the guys on the next adventure (and look forward into how I might be able to be involved).
As for the two projects I was involved with ('How to Travel the World for Free' and 'Collaborative Scroll') , they went off great. I'm going to conduct a post project review of them both in a later post (hopefully), though I think there are definitely learning experiences from them to draw out, again it was the experience of doing them that mattered more in the end than the end results, though lots of interesting things came out of them too. Running a workshop in an ad-hoc organised and improvised way actually worked really well, and some great insights from the two guest speakers I found (Sarah Haq and Vinay Gupta). I have some great audio that I recorded that I need to edit and is on my to do list. Collaborative Scroll came out well too, think the reading bit could be planned better, but again it was an improvised experience, and a learning curve. I think I'm going to try and catch up with Dougald about improvisation, i think there are definitely some useful discussions that we have had before over it, and how that might have helped the scroll project (and be useful for next time). In the mean time, this is what Dougald has to say about impov in conversation with Lloyd.
Away from the Treehouse Gallery, the other major experience was early August. I went along to The Sandpit Hide and Seek Fest. I've become intrigued by the idea of play, and gaming in general. Again, rather than being someone there to study it, I was going to be part of it, and to have fun. I played a good few games, really enjoyed 'Property of a Traitor' which involved a group of us trying to decode a dead spies belongings to diffuse a bomb, and the other games where all fun too, being able to be part of a different realty set for a while, and develop new stories and ways of looking at scenarios. The only real issue I had here is that I did seem to spend a lot of the time photographing, and the time I really enjoyed myself, and got the most out of the experience was in getting down to it and playing. I think that is another post to add to the list, the importance of play and storytelling in my work, something that has been there for a while, but I never quite realised it was there.
Well, I'm back away from London, and my plan is to go in and out for a while. There are a few events I want to be part of still, I also want to try and spend some time connecting to the Birmingham based networks as well, now that they are close by. I still have to decide where I want to be based, the idea of having this (sort of) break is a chance to reflect on the past year post RCA and the different things I have been doing, both commercially and otherwise, and just how commercial I want to take my self, or how many other experiences I want to pursue.
Labels: experience, fun, life, sandpit, summer, treehouse gallery
posted by andy broomfield at 11:30 PM
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