Recording task

To initiate thought on this task, we were asked to define 'Recording'. My definition of Recording was as such:

The production of a record - which is an artefact produced by transcribing information for

future review.

We were then asked to list as many different methods of recording we can think of within a limited time. These are those which came to mind for me:

Memory, Transcription, Mark making, Painting, Drawing, Poetry/writing, drawing, painting,

Numerical value, audio recording, archive creation, performance, video, photography

For this task, we have been paired with another student teacher. We need to create an activity to create an artwork of 'recording' for the other ST to complete. We will comlplete this task ourselves also and we will complete the task we receive from the other ST.

This blog post presents my reflections throughout the process of this task, from its initiation when the task was set, to the completion of the two tasks and conclusions from this experience.

The task started at its commission. At first I was fearful of creating a task too difficult to reproduce, but I was comforted that there are certain things that we would all have access to. Both as aspiring art and design teachers, and as UCL students. In a classroom setting, children will have access to the resources that their school offers and it is good to make a note of this when entering a school to set reasonable assignments.

I struggled to think of a task to set and went through a lot of ideas. I thought of the following task:

¬ Find a place where you expect silence.

¬ Sit there and record a list of all the sounds that occur.

¬ Start with the phrase 'The click of a pen'

¬ Remove from the sounds any implementation of its action. For example: instead of 'the man places the book on the table' write 'the heavy thud of bound leather'

¬ Title the work 'A quiet (name of chosen location)

This is what I wrote during trialing this project:

- The click of a pen

- A low growl deepens

- The growl descends as hum

- The next station is announced

- Dry turning of a page

- Plastic instruments fall into metal

- Scatches on a page

- light chatter emerges

- disgust in a foreign tongue

- Unzipping

- Whirrs ascend

- The next station is announced

- elevated thuds

- footsteps

I created this project for it's ease of reproduction, but I did not think clearly about the recording itself, why it's important/significant or how to contextualise it with other artists etc.

Clarity emerged from looking at other artists and exhibitions first as inspiration. Developing subject knowledge and creating first an importance.

How do I assign limitations, when such freedom is offered?

The In-specificity is no less professional, but it's open ended-ness inspires creative thinking.

Despite this, it's important to set clear boundaries of outcome. The creativity must be recorded, to be analysed and given constructive feedback. In larger classes the specificity becomes increasingly important, it's easier to see which students have met the task, before investing deeper thought into their experience.

I started to research contemporary artists that work with the archive and with datasets.

I found this article from the Glasgow school of art on artists that work with archive titled 'Past is Prologue' which had an interesting introduction about the reflections of what it means to archive and record experience as well as some thoughts of how we as artists might create works that respond to the concept of an archive as inspiration.

"How might we store and access information about all of the senses? How might we record a taste or a smell for example? As technology enables us to record more and more of our lives, are certain aspects still being overlooked? Should we try to record everything, or should some things be forgotten?"

Additionally I found this point valuable:

"One thing we can be sure of, is that no matter what we record in the present, or however we interpret the past in the now, it is those in the future who will shape the legacies of whatever we choose to preserve."

It is through looking at these exhibitions, and reflecting on their importance that I found that we as artists have a unique ability when it comes to 'recording' that cannot be reproduced by scientific/clinical frameworks. And that is to express the freedom and the profound- nature of personal experience, and even experience of the ineffable.

One artist, that I would later use as a reference for the other ST to look at, is Tim Etchells with his discoursive work 'Art Flavours (2006)''. In this work he presented the attempt to create a 'memory' flavour of ice-cream. The other two artists supported further the notion of using aritstic expression to add to the discussion of the value of words and using more-than just words to communicate ideas.

In order to find value in whatever 'dataset' i would comission the other ST to record from I decided to reflect on what is important which this dataset can achieve:

- Add value in a students life

- a perspective of value on mundanity

- prove the privilege of condition - what makes the here and now so special as to be recorded?

- record the inneffable - celebrating artistic value for the attempt at an impossible task

- to show there are no wrong interpretations in art, although expecting the student to follow the brief as best they can.

When walking to the station after a day of lectures, I noticed a Sycamore leaf on the ground. Its edges had been reddened by the first signs of autumn and I was inspired to capture the feeling of change. All of us STs are in transitory phases of change in starting a brand new course, but also we live in an environment of change, not least with the turn from summer into Autumn.

I decided that the task would include collecting several objects which represent change and can reflect our own experience of the concept of change at the current times in our lives. These collections would be 'recorded' in an archive, as if to record their existence for a distant future.

I would ask the ST to describe the object in as much detail as they can using words alone, by entering this information into a drawn table.

There is a saying in musical theatre, that you speak until you cant help but dance and then you dance until you can't help but sing. I wanted to encourage this inspiration of artistic expression in a similar way. To use words until it is insufficient and then to express oneself creatively to add further depth and meaning to the words underneath.

This is the result that I produced:

One significant thing that I found is that by starting with the written task, the table became a canvas and its context as an archive informed the creative decisions that I made.

For example:

- the student card can be more clearly seen as an accurate representation as i realised its important for me, even if its a new form of identity. I felt confident in reproducing its likeness and was confident to paint this over the detailed description of it i had already written.

- the train ticket was disposable, reproducible and i felt that i actually detested that i had become so reliant on something that came at such a price, so i was less enthused by the idea of immortalising it and decided to purposefully obscure it and for its significance to be partially obscured also without overly censoring the description which described this frustration.

- I burned the bottom of the page as I had ideas for more but that this is not a personal project but the fulfilment of a task which enforces stricter boundaries on my own expression. Here present through 'time'.

- The Sycamore leaf is less personal and more of a situational and enviornmental change. While i do empathise with the dying leaf on an emotional level, it didnt feel necessary to obscure anything with it and so I pushed it to the corner as if to contextualise the work in an environment of change.

These are the instructions I decided on:

After completing the project, i found that within the time frame I was able to complete the task with just three of the items. So I incorporated this into the task's expectations, as i knew it was realistic.

The other changes that I made include:

- Offering creative examples of how to express creative expression without need for the resource or skill of painting/ drawing.

- Questions that ignite critical thinking about the task

- An introduction of why the task might apply to the life of the student.

- Compared to previous instructions i had written for this task I made sure to stay direct, clear and concise. The conciseness shows that clear expectations are set for the task, but also a task with less words is extrinsically less intimidating.

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