bloggity blog blog blog...

Why blog? Is there really a point to writing about our creative work when we could just get on with creating it? At our workshop last weekend, we all seemed to agree that documentation is a crucial aspect of the lifecycle of an artwork. And much of our work in the arts community involves either the documentation of artworks (eg. ABC Classic FM and AMC) or documentation about artworks (eg. Arts reviewing, interviewing etc.): it’s something we’re all fascinated by. Documenting work means it can maintain a life after its completion. It also provides a potential resource for those interested in the creative process.

But blogging allows us to do much more than this. Joining the blogosphere – a complex web of thoughts, dialogue, and imagery – means that we can collaborate without the need to be physically together. This is essential given LBB artists are spread between Sydney, Canberra and the Blue Mountains. And I think more than anything it is simply an efficient means of gathering our material together in one place where the five of us can easily access it.

So it’s probably best to see our blog as a virtual scrapbook: a place to workshop ideas, share sources of inspiration, explore concepts and analyse theory.

And this scrapbook won’t be text-based. We plan to publish documentation about the project using sound, text and image (both stills and video).

Last Saturday afternoon some of us spent time exploring these ideas to make sure we were all on the same wavelength in terms of blogging, particularly because not all of us have blogged before. We identified five different kinds of entries and decided to use the following tags for categorising our materials:

admin: These entries relate to the logistics of our residency at Bundanon and administration of the website itself.

workshop: A large proportion of blogging will be devoted to documenting the actual materials of our creative work and our methodology. And with the blog being a place to store ‘sketches’ of our work, we can then provide feedback on each other’s material and ideas through discussion.

inspiration: links to other work – quotes/images/sound – that inspires our own work.

reflection: an examination of our motivation for participating in the project, exploring the ‘why’ of the project. Also, reflections on our progress with the project. How do we feel about the progress we’re making? Are our achievements successful? What is working? What isn’t?

theory: Material relating to the history and theory of site-specific installation and environmental art.

collaboration: approaches to the collaborative process

There’s a few other tags we decided to use as well to make sure the materials on our site are categorised logically and are easily accessible.

These include:
ben, dan, julian, rhi, serena (this means we can easily access material we’ve written ourselves)
sound, text, image (again, we can easily access material relating to one type of medium)

And the beauty of a folksonomy system of tagging means that material can exist in more than one category...of course, we’ll be adding more as we need to as well!

organising this weekend

Hi all,

Thanks for your beautifully eloquent blogs Dan and Ben!

This is just about my first ever blog entry, so I'm avoiding the eloquent and just going for organisational.

So, we're all meeting up this weekend to organise and create for Bundanon (our residency is on in 2 months' time!).

Friday night I'm guessing we're meeting at the pub. I'll be there from 7.30pm onwards. If anyone is going to be much later than 9.30pm perhaps it's better just to meet at the house instead of the pub?

Food is almost organised - Dan, do you require further shopping list suggestions or clarifications?

In terms of the weekend itself, I see a rough outline as follows (open to any suggestions of course!)

Friday night - all arrive at Blackheath and spend time catching up and sharing project ideas.

Saturday morning - people get up whenever they want, have breakkie and then spend the morning on their own creative stuff, inspired by being in Blackheath and by thoughts for the Bundanon residency.

Saturday lunch - all come together and share lunch.

Saturday afternoon - let's spend say 1-2 hours sharing the work/ideas that we generated during the morning. The remainder of the day I think should be spent planning a timetable for our time at Bundanon and agreeing on a central project.

Saturday dinner - Serena to cook. Julian is heading back to Sydney for work. The remaining 4 of us should do a creative activity. How about we all improvise songs/music on a theme (ie just to muck around and be creative).

Sunday morning - creative time.

Sunday afternoon - more planning (repeat of Saturday afternoon).

Later Sunday afternoon - all clean the house.

Sunday evening - head back home (possibly via dinner at Dan's house).

How does that fit with everyone?

- Serena