beyond this space

successful blogging

I read an item in the paper today about two ‘successful bloggers’ and I thought about that for a while. Success, in blogging terms, is defined by page hits. But must we be constrained to this definition of success? Maybe for me, success in blogging is measured on how regularly I post, or some other measure. Perhaps one cannot be a successful blogger without first being a successful hobbyist? Well, for me, I am certainly not feeling successful on that front. I am working full time, looking after a todder, pregnant, and just generally feeling crappy, tired and overwhelmed by obligations. But I don’t want to write about that! So how realistic a portrayal of reality is a blog? If one has a successful blog, i.e. an interesting blog, does that mean they are neglecting responsibility in favour of hobbies? Or do most people blog about their everyday lives, and those who are ‘successful’ just happen to have found a way to write their lives in an interesting way? Because really, there are a lot of blogs, but surely not all those bloggers’ lives are as interesting as they are portrayed. I’m lucky to find an hour a day to read a book. Where do these other people find time? Are they insomniacs? Are they speed-addicts? And what about all the people reading these blogs; where are they finding the time? Do I just spend too much time at work doing my actual job? And what of these successful hobbyists - do they reach a point at which it occurs to them that their hobbies ARE their lives, and those hobbies are inherently devoid of meaning and true purpose, but they are now tied into this network of writing and being read so they cannot stop, they cannot pursue a different path?

Russian Snark

http://russiansnark.com/wordpress/

Although this film is about two Russian immigrants to New Zealand, it’s full of that lovely ‘Kiwiness’ which inflects all NZ film: the production value always makes me cringe at first - none of this dreamy deliciously fuzzy background-music style opening. It cuts straight to the chase; the sound is so raw I feel uncomfortably close to the action. Somehow I cannot be a voyeur when watching NZ film; I am always part of the scene. Probably due to the fact that much of the landscape I have experienced first hand. What I appreciate most about this film is how unapologetically confronting it is - it must make the artist very vulnerable to put themselves into the public sphere in this way.

an evening with Woody

Finally watched Midnight in Paris last night (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1605783/). It was a DVD my husband chose, and I thought it was a classic old film; an Audrey Hepburn or something. Feeling very ignorant once I realised it’s a relatively new Woody Allen film. I LOVE Woody’s neurotic twisted movies, so was very disappointed in myself for missing the existence of this amazing film. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to Paris, so I really soaked up the scenery in the opening minutes. What annoyed me at first, and pleased me later, is that all the characters are quite unlikeable, particularly the ones we are meant to relate to. They are either too confident, too vague, too pouty, or too shallow. That is what is so brilliant about Woody; he just gets to the heart of the matter, being, we are all inherently obnoxious. On some level, to some person, at some point in time, we are unbearably annoying. Woody seems to have three distinct stereotypes into which characters fit: there is the superficial to distraction majority, followed by the more unique artist/and or muse, followed by the odd pseudo intellectual who fits somewhere in the middle. And of course, as I think about the film I can’t help come back to Baudrillard and how accutely he has identified reality as ‘hyperreality’ - there is no past, present, or future; no here or there; no real or imagined; there is merely copies of copies of recycled ideas based on subjective understandings of experience.

missed meanings

I have a picture from http://publichistorianryangosling.tumblr.com/ posted to the noticeboard above my desk. Everyone that comes into my offices comments; ‘Ryan Gosling, he’s cool.’ They don’t even NOTICE the text on the image, which for me is the entire reason I have the image on my noticeboard; it should be a talking point about social constructivism, but instead prompts discussions about ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ and ‘Crazy Stupid Love’. So I got talking to an academic from our Social Sciences department about the blog the image is from; and he said most of the staff in his department don’t even know what Tumblr is, or what Public History theory is. It strikes me how much we can learn through a missed-meaning. There are spaces where there should be meaning, but there is just pop culture.

exit through the gift shop

“It’s like I’m playing chess. I don’t know how to play chess, but life is a big chess game.” (Thierry Guetta in ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’)

I’m still working through the implications of this film. I appreciated and related to Thierry’s need/desire to film everything. But obviously someone who films every aspect of their daily life is a little loopy…aren’t they? I love how his innocence and enthusiasm ingratiated him with these secretive elitist artist types. In the creation of ‘mr. brainwash’ the artists come face to face with the repercussions of their own egos. So street art got commercialised, isn’t that just what happens? Society/culture industry whatever you want to call this thing we are a part of just takes things and magnifies them based on our collective agreement of the real. So we have two definitions for art:commercial/mainstream versus art/elitism?! I have to come back to Baudrillard again. So much of what I see happening confirms my appreciation for the depth of Baudrillard’s insights. The phenomenon of ‘mr. brainwash’ represents so completely the notion of hyperreality. ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ shows us what a simulacrum is, and how it becomes so:street art emerges as a response to the privatisation of public space through commercialisation; the message resonates with a public who reiterate new meanings through the filter of their own experience; the presence of a camera changes the meaning again, and the footage is edited which again creates new layers of meaning, upon which the film industry promotes a product that is like a picture drawn on a piece of toilet paper put through a shredder, glued to a piece of card, photographed, and screen printed. Ultimately how can we ever know what is real? So much of what we experience is mediated, and the ‘truth’ of it lies in our choice to trust the medium. Does it even matter? I think the whole question of reality is redundant. What matters is what we choose to believe, and what we choose to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHJBdDSTbLw

http://www.mrbrainwash.com/

my life as a bureaucrat and a movie called ‘catfish’

Actually, I’m not entirely sure I spelled ‘bureaucrat’ correctly. Administration. Complex words for simple things that are hard to do and easy to mess up when attempted by people who don’t care. I sometimes feel like a spy working in the system.

“A reality thriller that is a shocking product of our times, Catfish is a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue”  (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1584016/)

Last night I watched a documentary/drama called ‘Catfish’. It is the second of this particular genre of documentary that seems very ‘now’. The characters construct elaborate fantasies into which others find themselves apart of, only to be hurt and confounded when reality emerges. I’m sure someone has already coined a term for this type of documentary so I won’t even try, but I can say with truth that I had some original thoughts about the genre and its emergence at this time/place/space. I suppose it is the whole art-imitating-life-imitating-art thing; we live in a more and more virtual way and are finding that our frames of reference for understanding ethics and human interaction must shift slightly to encompass different ways of being in a particular space/time. When someone lies to you about who they are in real life, it is devastating. Is it any more devastating if someone you ‘know’ in a virtual sense turns out to be a fantasy? Or should it be less so, because you come to realise that you should have been sceptical, you should have seen the signs? Is it unethical to allow real people to be involved in the fantasy life you construct for yourself; if that fantasy is equally enjoyed by both parties? How is it that the human mind is capable of so much creativity and yet life offers so few opportunities to explore it? I feel sad, and confronted, by these films. Human relationships are complex and beautiful, and I can’t stop thinking about ‘Catfish’ because it has ripped-open a peep-hole into the human condition that I now cannot close.

• 11 pencils, poised to tell their own truth

  A pencil can write softly. It can rewrite itself when tides change. It can always undo its mistakes; rewrite its histories. A pencil can be dull, or it can be sharp, depending on its use and on the tools available to it. A pencil has peculiar powers it can impart to anyone. A pencil can tell stories in any language, in numbers too if it is so inclined, or convey a feeling with fine lines. A pencil can be any colour. A pencil is objective, yet subject to the subjectivity of others. A pen, is final.

CHCHEQFEB2011: 1 YEAR ON

A lot of people will be writing about this today. They will be photographing the memorials, reflecting on the event’s impacts in the press, and discussing the more personal and social details in cafes/living rooms/offices/blogs. In some ways I hope no one ever reads this, but I still need to write about it and make it publicly available for my own catharsis. CHCHEQFEB2011 was an odd natural disaster in its partiality. It did not envelop its geographical victim like water or fire would have done. It was more of a rearrangement; of physical space, spiritual priorities, emotional landscapes and social places. Only one year on from the event am I able to accept the significance of it on my own personal life. I have been confronted by the transience of all things, particularly the relational. When pushed outside our comfort zones people become faced with new, challenging choices. Once things are rearranged so completely, do we approach it like a jigsaw that can be pieced back together, or must it be recycled into a new form of life? Are we in the same place, or have we moved without ever leaving? ‘Beyond this Space’ is my way of recycling reality into something that no longer has geographical boundaries. This experience has made me appreciate the fragility of the physical places we inhabit. We will always be more vulnerable than we can ever accept. Our relationships and our emotions are as strong as are thoughts will allow, and in turn that strength can be transferred to any physical place to give it new life, and new meaning.