New developements

When you are caught up in routines and daily work, there are always that unexpected moments that gives your live a new direction. When you think back, the major changes in your life came because of certain little events, happenings, moments and or meetings, that moved all upside down and became a milestone.

Trying to mention these milestones in your life only happens afterwards. When you are in the middle of the changes, you don’t know what hit you because all your energy goes into arranging the change. Yes, the changes never come from outside. You yourself change because of these triggers, and you only know what hit you afterwards.

Keeping track of you Digital Work

It isn’t that easy to keep track of all your digital work when you are online a lot of the time. You made some websites, created some blogs, and work on some digital platforms, and before you know it, all your info is on several places.

A new website was created to solve that problem. I am testing that now. I made a special place for links to all websites on: http://bouncesite.com/iuoma and that should then become the place where people can ‘bounce back to’ when they don’t find the right place.

Currious if that will work. I could leave the link also in the places I work, and instead of giving them a list of websites, I guide them to this place that is always actual with screenshots of the current state of the websites. Yes, it might work, but ‘the proof is in eating the pudding’ as the say in English.

Text or Visual

At a certain point in your life you know it for yourself. Either you are textual orientated, or visual orientated.  I knew quit early that the visual part was more important for me. It also means I rather make a scedule then write down words. I make documentations with graphics rather then lists of words. I still use a lot of words, but expressing emothions goes better with visuals.

So visual connections are preferred too. I link images to other images and thoughts to images. Words are connected to images. When I give a definition of a word I try to explain what I see in the word. I visualize it and then tell people what I see.

The brain works differently for everybody. We don’t always realize that. We see things differently. Tests prove that when two people see the same thing but describe other stories.

We are all publishing, but who is reading?

With the computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets, a lot of us are online all the time. We make photos, write texts, and stream videos. So much digital information is being produced that everybody is sending, but not that many are receiving these days.

As an ‘oldie’ in computerland I’ve seen it all pass. The first e-mails though BBS-systems, the first online magazines you could acces through a modem, then the PC’s, The Internet went accesible through the HTTP-protocols, and in the 90-ies the first websites were build. This new century the blogs came, the social media emmerged, and we grew to this online presence of all of us.

And there we are, everybody writing his/her stories and thinking others are interested in it all. Is that at all true? Are we interested in what others say and share or have we become more interested in what we share with others and if we have enough likes, shares and views…….?

In the Mail-Art network all was interesting because it was a one-to-one communication. The sender and the receiver. That still is the bottom line. If I sent, and there is a receiver, the messages only came accross when the receiver becomes a sender with a reply, and a dialog has started or takes place. On Internet, that is sometimes missing.

It also explains the success of facebook over the years. The communication is made easy, the posting (like sharing memories) sometimes automated, and we believe that there actually is a dialog although we know over 5% of the Profiles are Fake. Also there is the Fake news, the fake reactions, the mobing, and so many more things that happen on the social media.

Time for a good dialog is missing. So we need to take more time for the individual. That is the basic idea of living.

Belonging to which Network?

The small poll I did on some Facebook IUOMA groups shows that most people in my larger network do feel at home with the term Mail Art.  The other names, like Social Art, Correspondence Art, Arte Postale, Net Art, Communication Art, they all are focussing on other feelings we get in the essence.

Mail has to deal with sender and receiver, the communication form, and the fact that the distance is not set. You can send mail to any corner of the world. If there is a receiver, you might reach him

So the name of the network you belong to isn’t that important, the fact that you use communicationforms to reach others is the essence in here.  There are other networks too that focus on specific subjects. Artistamps, Asemic Works, and mucht more. Also connected to the ‘pataphysical world and discover that I fit right in, and IUOMA and all other things I do could have a broader basis. But time will tell.

Somehow fitting in a group isn’t what an artists does. he reacts on the world outside him/her and creates artworks as a reflection to what he sees, hears, feels and thinks. But communication is essential, even when it isn’t all the time.

So I settle to the fact that I belong to many networks, actually also created my own network, but also mingle with other new discovered networks I find on my path. Life itself then becomes the artwork. And all you created will be left behind when you die. Other will decide if it tells them something. If not; like life itself, all is recycled again and new life follows the path for the next journey.

It is funny how my drawings from a few years back now fitt in with the thoughts I write down. The digital World doesn’t change that much, but the factors speed and distance that are essential in communication; those two have changed.

Ruud, April 9th 2017

p.s. Some topics are interesting enough to make a drawing about. So is this topic, and I just made a start for a new work that will be ready within a few weeks I guess:

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Social Art or Exchange Art ; maybe Communication Art?

As a reaction to my Blog post with title: “Mail-Art in the digital World” I found on facebook a share with the reaction:

“If an activity is named after a medium and the medium changes but the activity continues then maybe it’s a mistake to continue labeling it by the medium. “Mail art” was a bad name to begin with and is even more inaccurate now. “Social art” or “exchange art” would be a lot more accurate and “cooler.” ” (Allen Bukoff)

Ok. I seem to have hit a nerve there. The name Mail-Art is in the 70-90’s connected to the postal medium with postcards, envelopes and packages. The digital possibilities to communicate came in, and I call this direction of changes ‘The Digital World”, and actually make a lot of drawing on the subjects involved. Text is always difiicult. People have their own perception of the words, and Dictionairies tell us what it should be. But still, we see the words in our own views.

Social Art for me is connected to social behaviour. Exchange Art for me is too strict and when you send, you must send something back? We only echange mail and messages and views? We interact.

For me the digital world means that the number of contacts increased. Also the many ways of cummunication and the inter-connections between the different networks is what is so fascinating. I know my brain works with inter-connections on a high level. A world always triggers another word that is connected even when there is no visible connection.

But Social Art could fit. Social behavious and the creative aspects are a beautiful and fascinating combination.  When I ‘Google” the term Social Art I get this:

Two sides of it: The text side and the visual side.

Or in Wikipedia terms:

Social Artistry is the attempt to address or recognize a particular social issue using art and creativity.^[1] Social artists are people who use creative skills to work with people or organizations in their community to affect change.^[2] While a traditional artist uses their creative skills to express their take on the world, a social artist puts their skills to use to help promote and improve communities. Thus, the main aim of a social artist is to improve society as a whole and to help other people find their own means of creative expression.^[3]

Social artists may address issues such as youth alienation ^[4] or the breakdown of communities.^[5] Most commonly, the social artist will address these problems by helping people to express themselves and find their voice, or by bringing people together and using art to help them to foster an understanding of each other.^[6]

Social artistry can incorporate several different art forms including theatre, poetry, music and visual art.

Recently published (2013) findings confirm this shift from individual expression to community engagement, or “from autonomous to socially engaged.”^[7] Lingo and Tepper cite several examples:

1. contemporary artists “see themselves as educators, social workers, policy actors, and health providers (Lena & Cornfield, 2008; Simonds, 2013; Throsby & Zednik, 2011)
2. Nick Rabkin writes “more arts graduates end up in education than in any other occupation” (2013)
3. social practice artists “freely blur the lines among object making, performance, political activism, community organizing, environmentalism and investigative journalism, creating a deeply participatory art that often flourishes outside the gallery and museum system”^[8]

 

But besides research on these two alternatives. I have introduced also a term some years ago. Lets call it Communication Art.

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The Digital Human Being

The drawings I make the last years have a larger line and deal with quite a specific subject. How the Human Beings are building their digital world, and with that also change their behaviour.

The drawings mostly show cartoonlike persons that are interconnected with digital aspects of our life where sometimes things seem to work, and sometimes the quistions that arrise are obviously there.

The drawings are mostly made in the weekends when I have some free time. It takes a few sessions to get them ready. Indian ink and St. Petersburg watercolours is what I use. Normaly on 120 g/m2 paper. Sometimes also 300 g/m2 paper when I want to use several layers.

I always scan the results and use them in my digital communication and world wide web activities. Also I print some of them and use them as writing paper. Lately also interest from the artworld, and for a second time one drawing will be printed in a book. Always feels good to get some recognition on your work.

This is just one of the drawings. Access the complete portfolio to have a glimpse of the collection.

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