I’ll preface this by saying, that, in case you’re encountering this by chance since it's online: Welcome! (and thank you :D) It’s lovely to have you here. This project is a pseudo-thesis made for one of my classes, so I’m about to pull the curtain back a little further here for the sake of the project. Be warned!
This is very much a work in progress, and I hope to expand on it!
The Wellspring is largely allegorical, I am trying, to whatever effect that may be, to tread the line between appropriately mysterious without being too pedantic and dense.
What *should* I question?A few weeks ago, I wrote the following questions for the sake of our work:
a) What significance emerges from the mantra of Body = Environment = Machine? And how can I use physical space and materiality to help inform my exploration of this theme?
b) How can I explore the existential self through complex intersections of identity, space, material, and collaboration?
I think these are still useful questions, but I’d like to add this:
c) What is the value of deconstruction? And how should we begin reconstruction?
These are all far too large to answer in a single thesis, rather these are lines of exploration that can underpin specific projects and series. The wellspring is one method of synthesizing my current thoughts on these questions, and in itself, my inability to really articulate what *to* question; though I am not sure if that makes sense.
What does research look like to me?It looks a bit like this: I learned enough HTML, CSS, and Java Script to make this website, janky as it is, viable over the last two weeks. That is to say, whether it's coding, digital programs like Rhino or Nomad, or my physical art practice itself, I can lock myself into the process of learning a skill necessary inorder to execute a vision. I think it's the problem-solving element that works for me; If I have a product in mind (and/or a set of parameters to work with), I find a lot of enjoyment in figuring out how to achieve that end goal. The act of making this website made this abundantly clear to me.
Research, for me, is the act of learning itself; finding the motivation to reach out for advice, and putting the time into information gathering and working through the process best by doing it. Intuition ties in here– sometimes when I don’t know how to solve something, especially thematically, diving in and letting the process speak for itself is the best way to move forwards.
In the case of the WELLSPRING, research is a form of gathering, also; it's a project concerned with the shape of knowledge –the structure– and is a synthesis of this structure with specific nodes of interest. In this way, it’s organizational, ritualistic, the making of a foundation I hope to expand upon later in constructive ways. It’s most fundamentally a method of self exploration; turning inward with the hope to turn outward.
Approaching improvement?In order to improve, I want to keep seeking the outside. It is vital that we break down, or at least re-examine, membranes between subjects and modalities, between disruptive delineations, and varying truths. Thus, I will keep gathering; through collaboration, ways of working, and by bringing in the overt interests and ideologies of science, of culture, history, language –whatever I can do.
I think my studio work will best be informed by collaboration and by processes of iteration and reinvention. The WELLSPRING itself is a thematic core that I am only beginning to understand and am hoping to expand and maintain in meaningful ways. Observing Matthew Mahoney’s ‘On the edge of the desert,’ and other processes of world building have reinforced my interest in doing so, while the many essays we’ve read, my experience in liberal arts courses, and even Coreen Teed’s ‘Strange Mutualisms: a compendium of entanglement’ have reinforced my interest in rebuilding the definition of ‘studio’ as well. Sculpture is a mode of research; one of many I hope to occupy.