Michael -
I like it! I found myself reading about forty of them. They're oddly
moreish. The brevity of the text helps. I like the little arrows which
point from sections of the text to the places on the map where the thing
being described occurred or was seen - partly because I think your
inclination as a reader is just to read the text and ignore the maps,
and the arrows help to tie the two things together. Another thing I like
is that each separate run-route with its accompanying block or blocks
of text has its own visual identity, which helps you to keep track of
where you've got to in the Flickr thumbnails at the bottom of the
screen. Writing-wise I think the weaker sections are the more
self-consciously descriptive ones, where the diction can sometimes get a
bit 'poetic' or bogged down with artistic references. The best bits are
the sections where the thing you're describing seems to absorb you more
completely - the pairs of gloves appearing mysteriously on the grass
verge, for example, or the ginger-haired boy smashing twigs in half with
his forehead.
At first I found myself thinking, 'It's a shame to waste this on Flickr;
he should work it up into some kind of web installation'; but then after
a bit I started to think that maybe using a ready-made facility like
Flickr for this kind of new media diary was the most appropriate
thing... I still can't quite make up my mind.
- Edward
On 13/04/17 14:13, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/albums/72157676652502324
Last summer, after a gap of some years, I started running daily again.
I did this because I had stopped taking a small dose of an
antidepressant and although I was careful to withdraw slowly it hit me
hard - I experienced a renewed depression and anxiety which was much
worse than that which I had originally taken the drugs to combat. I
was unwilling, though, to return to the drugs if I could possibly
avoid this.
The running helped me cope and, as I get slowly better, continues to
do so.
In early 2017 I started documenting some of my runs using the ‘measure
distance’ function on Google maps,taking a screenshot of the resulting
image and posting it to the photo sharing service Flickr. I have been
interested for a long time in things that somehow hover between image,
diagram and text and this seemed like a fruitful example of that. Once
I’d made and posted a few these it seemed only natural to append to
the image some commentary on my run, things and people seen and noted,
my state of mind, the weather… a kind of highly compressed diary
superimposed on the run documentation and something which fitted with
my long standing interest in the way that the internet allowed very
naturally for long form aggregations of often diverse and lapidary
components. (For years, from 2003 to the present day, I have been
making small videos and posting them to the internet, a practice I
have compared to the Japanese literary form Zuihitsu, literally
‘following the brush’ - a kind of miscellany.)
Each piece takes quite a long time to make and I’m very conscious of
working against the clock to complete and post each one. I’m also
mindful that, although I work hard to make my texts flow, sometimes,
to meet my self-imposed requirement of posting on the same day as I
run, I have to accept a certain improvisatory quality (which might be
a polite way of saying the texts are not always as polished as I would
ideally like.)
I was deeply involved in almost the first wave of ‘net-art’ - it
brought me into image wrangling and gave me an opportunity to have
people look at my work and even to get it shown in institutions too.
I’m saddened by the now overwhelming corporatisation of this space
which has, it seems to me, destroyed many of the possibilities for art
which were so exciting in the late nineties of the last century and
the early noughts of this one. Much digital and networked art now
seems to require large amounts of tech and funding and to have moved
closer and closer to everything many of us felt was disagreeable and
backward looking about the art world. Little of it now lives on the
net. The kind of enthusiast I was would now get channelled into spaces
specifically made for ’enthusiasts’, for ‘amateurs’ - the kind of
intermingling that was completely natural back then has almost
completely disappeared.
One of my responses ( the other is to work in more traditional
practices, such as painting) is to try and maintain a toehold in
places like Flickr, which although certainly corporate and equally
regarded by both art world commentators and those who own it as a
space for the masses rather than the charmed circles of the art world,
nevertheless retain, if one looks carefully, echoes of that earlier
promise. One finds artists, who, whether they would style themselves
such or not, are making work of depth and lasting interest as well as
in some sense pushing back boundaries.
Finally I want to say I have no idea whether this work is any ‘good’.
I know I have a need to make it, I know that on my good days it seems
worth making and it seems to me to offer something that, if not
original (what is? what is? - we had *that* brought home to us
forcefully by the network, and a good thing too), at least synthesises
a number of practices in a way which still seems native to the
internet as well as drawing on some interesting tendencies in
contemporary art, particularly the kind of romantic conceptualism I
associate with Richard Long and Sophie Calle as well as with groups
like Collective Actions.
If you have a moment please take a look. It’s a big ask but if you
have time I would welcome your thoughts, whether positive, puzzled or
negative.
best wishes
michael
_______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
_______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
