Reflection: Branding Becomes Us
Whilst thinking about this blog, “what will it look like?”, “what content will I put in here?”, I have found my self envisioning all kinds of formats, looks and constructions. The internet is a vast place, the research potential, almost unlimited. Deciding to attach the blog to my website has become an instrumental in achieving a primary objective of getting some form of platform that goes beyond what the website achieves in the way of documentation or should I say storage. For now I guess its trial and error.
So how is this developing? how does one ‘create’ brand? Is brand important or a relevant accompaniment to practice? Are there other artist outhere that run these two disciplines together?
Immediately I find myself in an immersive environment of discourse that has me questioning so much. Therefor, propelling me into research that explores different formats, available technologies, that on reflection, and with a technological utility, help me to further extend part of my, persona, if you like. The way I see it, the blog is an extension of my practice, the summative part, a chance to open dialogue, that helps the viewer engage in a way that contextually develops and ‘frames’ the location of my practice in its current stage of development.
As I move forwards with this process, more will be revealed.
But there is a part of me that feels a recalcitrance towards some idea of an image. Who is it for? me? You the reader?
During an early seminar that set out the brief of constructing a blog, I found myself screenshotting certain details that were being displayed in accompaniment to the lecture. I quickly tried to bunch the screen shots into a folder on my desktop. In doing so, I scrambled to name the folder quickly. The seminar was in full flow, so, taking a lackadaisical and ponderously slow attitude whilst considering what to call the folder wasn’t an option, if I were to keep up with the oratory unfolding and ongoing development of the seminars objectives and narrative.
So I came up with a spontaneous approach that was in some way, an attempt to make the module name, ‘Methods and Inquiry’ shortened into a spelling that would take up as little as time possible.
So I typed in ‘Meth Inq’, (fig.1)Et voila! I immediately knew that this would act as an umbrella term that would define and house all my workings and give me something to build upon, a foundation, a bedrock that would serve as a point of return. What grabbed me was unfolding the word itself.
Fig. 1
The etymology of methinks, as used by Shakespeare, has a root in the meaning of something that ‘seems’. This works beautifully in tandem with the development of my work. What ‘seems’, ties in very much with my explorations and ongoing development with the field of phenomenology, and how that understanding frames my ongoing practice. A practice that is changing from a painterly style, evident over the expanse of my website, to a sculptural field. Producing work that signifies an emerging, exciting and more expressive style of projected communication. If I try to think about where my practice is heading at the moment, it would be hard to say. Obviously, sculpture has been a dominant action within my practice lately, and this grounds itself in my keen interest in the works of, Eva Rothschild, Rachel Whiteread and Richard Serra. And although these artists encapsulate the essence of something that exists alongside the sculptural work itself, like these artists, there is something deeper, not necessarily essential, but something that is only found in the process of making. What this is I am not sure yet. I look at my work of late and see something other than what I see there, but find it hard to qualify what that is. Maybe this is what Graham Harman is referring to when he talks of the autonomy of the object. Something, even as an artist one cant access.
Examples of work that stand as testament to the change of direction within my working practice. (click to scroll through)
Branding idea.
Opposite is an idea that is developed through the research into the name of Meth and Inq.
Shortened versions of the words Method and Inquiry.