May 5, 2010
NYC
Elevation 80m
I have been researching a new project for the past year and I am finally ready to shoot the first stage of it. Let’s call it project “X” for now shall we. I like to keep it close to the heart for a while, at least until I am ready to share some of its fruit with the public. But for now, we can at least have a brief discussion about part of the process and questions that have been kicking around upstairs.
As part of the research for project “X,” I start writing stories, short narratives. First, as an excise to get the thoughts flowing, to approach the project from another angle and then the writing kinda took on a life of its own. I think I would like to include these short stories, narrative scenes into the project somehow but I am not quiet sure in what forms yet. The visual will never be an illustration of the narrative. I want the narrative to add another element to the visual and not vice versa. Only one person has ever read any of the writing thus far, but on Monday I send the writing out to three other friends to get a little feedback and also to gauge my own reaction.
All the narratives describes events that are personal and private. Even though it is written in the third person, I am clearly the voice and the conscious of the female character. None of the other characters are named and I have tried to keep their identity some what ambiguous. Some of the stories are true while other are fiction. Irrespective to which ones are true, all of the materials are personal. I am anxious and eager to hear what the feedbacks are and also using this as a litmus test to see if I am comfortable with revealing this much of myself. Last night, I came across this passage in “Twenty – Eight Artists and Two Saints” Essays by Joan Acocella:
“Anxiety over self-revelation was probably not as common in the old days when the exposure was channelled through conventional forms (odes, sonnet) that masked he writer’s identity to some extent. In former times, too, art, forthrightly answered the audience’s emotional needs: tell me a story, sing me a song. Modernism, in refusing to do that duty, may have a lot to answer for in development of artistic neurosis. If art wasn’t going to answer the audience’s basic needs, then presumably it was doing something more exalted, more mysterious — something, in other words, that could put artist into a sweat.”
Is there something more exalted, more mysterious, dare I say profound to be extrapolated from these personal narratives? Can I create visuals that serves my vision for project “X” and use the narratives in a way that enhances it? Or is it all just an excise in self-indulgence? Modernists were my teachers and post modernism has long been my lover. All we are ever told is to write what you know and use your sufferings to create. I know nothing of the time where feelings and experience were hidden safely behind forms and structure. Is there a way to return to the old days? Even if there is, would I want to return? If sharing the narrative with three trusted friends is a litmus test of my own feelings on going public with the very private….I am anxious and uncertain.
Timely entry. I'm at the same place. Not on your scale, obviously, but enough to have made this entry extremely relevant to me.
It's funny how nervous being honest can make us, when you think about it. It's weird for me because I'm looking at the stuff I'm writing and realizing that I've known what I'm writing down, felt it for so long. It shouldn't be so new and scary for me, yet it is.