Post 40

I've been continuing to produce images and text for the Dandad brief. Which way do I want to go with this newspaper about identity? Is it going to be entirely related to issues concerning me or will it become broader. I often find that I work best when I produce a lot of drawings and begin to refine at a later date. I also need to consider the audience. Whio is this aimed at? Is it potential clients or art directors who will marvel at the adaptability of my work in a variety of settinngs? Is it aimed at the fine art element of my practice, perhaps something to add onto my current exhibition? Will it do both?

I've just been looking at some illustration agencies and finding places where my current work might sit. I must admit to a feeling of complete deflation at the moment. Although aware that things take time in this world, I can't seem to see a time when I will get into a position where my work will be commissioned. I'll keep on trying as always...I keep reading and drawing all the time, but need to find a place where my work might fit. I guess that I'll be waiting a few years...this seems to be the norm according to searches I've made on the AOI discussion pages. I've never been under any false illusions.

I felt like I came to a bit of a full stop and then started to look at illustration websites...looking at how others go about producing work for their market places and copying images into my sketchbook. I also need to think about the theoretical element that will run alongside the newspaper questioning identity and the self.

Post 39

Notes from 'How to read Derrida, Penelope Deutscher, Granta books.'



Chapter 3: Differance:

'The writer writes in a language and in a logic whose proper system, laws and life his discourse by definition cannot dominate absolutely. He uses them only by letting himself, after a fashion and up to a point, be governed by the system. And the reading must always aim at a certain relationship, unpercieved by the writer, between what he commendsand what he does not command of the patterns of language he uses...a signifying structure that critical reading should produce.
What does produce mean here? In my attempt to explain that, I would initiate a justification of my principles of reading...
To produce this signifying structure obviously cannot consist of reproducing, by the effaced and respectful doubling of commentary, the conscious, voluntary, intentional relationship that the writer institutes (though)...without this recognition and respect, critical production would risk developing in any direction at all and authorize itself to say almost anything. But this indespensable guardrail has always only protected, it has never opened, a reading.
Yet if reading must not be content with doubling the text, it cannot legitimately transgress the text towards something other than it, towards a referent (a reality that is metaphysical, historical, psychobiographical, etc.) or towards a signified outside the text whose content could take place, could have taken place outside of language...

There is nothing outside of the text (there is no outside text; il n'y pas de hors-texte).'

Extract from Derrida 1997B, 157-8. Pp28.

'...an important Derridean term, Diffreance, arises fromm his appropriation of Sausseure's concept of the 'sign.' Pp29.

'In relation to the opposition between 'prescence' and 'absence' differance is neither present or absent. Instead, it is a kind of absence that generates the effects of a presence. It is neitherv identity nor difference. Instead, it is a kind of differentiation that produces the effects of identity and of difference between those identities.' Pp29.

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Post 38

So here is one of my first images for the book about identity. Ok it is a work in progress but I guess I'mm pretty impulsive and just want an excuse to post up a picture, although I intend to spend more time working on the finer details of the image.

Post 37

Up early this morning thus saw it as a good opportunity to add link words to my AOI portfolio. This was something I should have done last year when I initially subscribed. I've found it useful looking into the areas in which my current work fits...seems to be primarily editorial based, although it is interesting to consider other areas such as packaging, posters and other categories that I hadn't previously thought of.

I've been trying a wire autonoma workshop at The Ropewalk today, frustrating because I feel that it has been unsuccessful. I attempted to make a figure out of wire with the theme of the self/identity as part of my research for the 16 page book. I think it has still been worthwhile, although frustrating all the same. The procesw is self? What has made it a failure? Who is suggesting this failure? Marc defeatistshaw?

Post 36

Prof dev

I've started to rework some of my sketchbook images for my AOI portfoilo, whilst being aware of the diffrerent categories such as health, travel, social issues etc. I've taken an image from my image bank...a vinegar pot and have began to think about different contexts in which to use it.

I drew the original image whilst waiting for my meal to arrive in a pub lunch on a pensioners Tuesday. I transcribed a part of a conversation between two elderly gents one who was referencing old eye drops as being formerly known as 'rat poison'.

Notes from the vinegar institute website:

. 'The French said it succinctly: vin aigre - meaning sour wine'.

. 'Throughout history, vinegar has proved to be the most versatile of products. The dictionary defines versatile as "capable of turning with ease from one thing to another," and from more than 10,000 years ago to today, consumers continue to use vinegar in a variety of ways.'

. I could do something that references the many uses of the product.

. Emphasis on the word 'sour'...sour grapes article perhaps?

. Uses in variety of meals...particularly fish and chips seaside culture.

I feel that this way of working suits me and gets me thinking about how to make my portfolio more appealing to potential art directors.

. I also need to think about getting a website...this may take some time due to finances and strengthening of my curent body of work.

. I will get a poster made to send out to prospective clients.

Post 35

Some useful quotes from Teach Yourself Postmodernism relating to The Self..Glen Ward.

'There are many sides to the unfolding story of Postmodern identity, but the starting point is that the self is fundementally social'. pp118

Karl Marx insisted on the above idea.

. 'For Jean Baudrillard (see chap 4) it involves a viral invasion of simulation into private life, such that it is impossible to draw a line between natural and manufactured identities and desires'. pp118

In modern identity...'There is still assumed to be a real, innate self underneath the public roles you play, but the struggle is finding it and being true to it'. pp119

*Check out Sigmund Freud.
* Sociology.

'Some theorists (for example Jameson, Baudrillard, Debord - see chapter 4) start to look at how the selves achieved under modernity have vanished in the wake of consumerism, mass culture and growing bureaucratization of life. others such as Lacan and Foucault propose that the stable unified self has always been an illusion. Although identity remains an issue in day to day life, postmodern theorists have binned any notion of the self as essential or timeless. In place of the earnest modernist search for the deep, authentic self, we have a recognition, and sometimes a celebration of disintegration, fragmented desires, superficiality and identity as something you shop for. According to some sociologists identity is best understood in terms of role play or style management. Image is now all that matters.' pp120

' In some earlier 20th century philosophy, the self loses its substance and becomes the product of your own search for authenticity (for example the work of Jean Paul Sartre). In postmodernism the self is without substance, but fashion statements, shopping and lifestyle choices have pushed authenticity out of the equation'. pp120

Post 34

I've been mulling over this artist book about identity over the past few days. I've been questioning my approach to creating sketchbook images and feel that I need to keep things fairly open at the moment. I need time to experiment prior to tightening up and trying to produce the finished article...

Do I make the book into a sequencial narrative or keep it fairly random? I could tie in elements from the NYC trilogy. I'm interested in the references made re Poe in NYC and have recently read 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher.'

I think running along in tandem with the images I produce I'll look into writing another peice of text looking at identity, somehow referencing the information gained from the research methods. Perhaps I could narrow it down and initially look within Postmodernism, although I don't think life really works that way!