Elastic Thinking, Synthesis and Renewal

This is an exciting time, a time for elastic thinking, synthesis and renewal. Having confirmed a place on the Fine Art Digital MA course some months ago, at Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London, my mind is now focused on what might be the trajectory I take during the next two years… and beyond.

Why do I think that the digital is an appropriate way to go? The reason for enrolling on this course lies deeper than that of being “in the moment”. The digital offers what I would call simultaneity. By this I mean, many layers of thought being articulated and rendered “visible” at one and the same time by means of different modalities and interfaces. The aim would be to facilitate the grasping of disparate ideas, explicating  and synthesising them: practically speaking, “operatic” synthesis.

I see the next two years as a book to be opened and written in. An opportunity to foster flexibility and adaptability, exploration and experimentation. This needs plasticity and a willingness to dig deep into what lies beneath my practice, always adding and subtracting from what I do, changing. To do this requires that I organise my thoughts critically, but without losing a sense of the informal, the unexpected, harnessing both progression and contingency with thought and a certain degree of courage.

This is a time for deep research. What do I hope to achieve during this course? My hope is to expose the connective tissue of an evolving practice and generate transferable ideas that kindle a new fire. I look forward to discovering new ways of expressing current and future ideas that run through what I do. I cannot say for certain what these might be but I have had a glimpse of a pathway. It is a journey through ancient, modern and future landscapes. Trajectories that intersect into contemporary culture examining the balance between individual thinking and collective movements: the perennial question between the group, or state, and the individual, law and conscience, security and freedom. All these are reflected in the realm of the arts as in politics and society in general.

I feel the need to learn new ways of doing things and use new materials; both at a conceptual and practical level. It is a space where the synthesis of process and outcome exist in a dynamic equilibrium, ideas and their expression embraced in a reciprocal relationship. Existing in states of immanence and transcendence or put another way, a system functioning within changing boundaries, permeable to the environment, evolving, bearing fruit and an eternal waiting… is this not a description of sorts of a living organism?