Today is December 1st and this blog is a one month early New Years Resolution.
I have been on holiday from university for two weeks so far and, as I'm sure is typical, I have done little of the new endeavors I had planned on undertaking now that I am free from the deadlines and constraints of university life.
I now see those 'binds' as having been a somewhat positive motivator: At least you get something done!
I have been studying Art History, having previously studied Art and Photography. I want to keep thinking about art - thinking with purpose. A journal is great way to do this - I have tried but I find it tedious, somewhat insular and rather old-fashioned.
Thus, this blog will act as my journal - a journal with direction. It will force me to articulate myself and my thoughts properly. (I hope) it will be read by some (if you are please comment or email. It's would be nice to know if this is more than only a shot in the dark as many cyber communications seem to be). But if not, if no one ever reads this but me, I refuse to see it as a waste. This blog, for now, is only for me. Hey: If something forces you to think it must be useful, right?
Ironically I hope this outlet will get me off the computer somewhat, to look harder and deeper, to respond creatively to what I see, read and experience.
A note on the title: I mean for it to be read several ways simultaneously:
- Reality: Bites - Yes, it does sometimes.
- Reality Bites Back - Everything we see and experience is reaching out to us in some way whether we are conscious of it or not.
- Reality Bites - This blog will contain brief missives on art and reality - and non-reality - thrown out into cyberspace.
A byte is also of course a unit of digital - virtual - information. 'Reality bytes' then is a paradox - somewhat fitting I think.
By referencing reality in the title my aim is to approach art as an exploration of the nature of reality and how we define it; seeing art as able to go beyond representation, questioning representation and reality in the process.
It is my belief that the photographic medium is uniquely placed to do this. It is an exciting, changing medium, redolent in potentialities, that is still often overlooked and underestimated. It is still in its adolescence as an art form and this blog will enter into this dialogue, approaching photography from a number of theoretical and critical angles.
Ultimately, however, for now I want the aims of this space to remain open. I cannot yet say which direction this blog will go in, or even if it will survive its first postings (many blogs don't and Blogger begins to look like a graveyard of forgotten cyber-ambitions). None-the-less I choose to see these points positively: I have an open, indefinite, intangible place from which to muse. It's kind of like buying a Lotto ticket: You know it will almost certainly amount to nothing - but still, you gotta' be in it to win it.
