Leeds

After what seemed like an age of waiting the workshop now seems to have passed in a blur of ideas, challenges, discussion, reflection, and at the end sheer good fun.  I am still in Leeds, just waiting to check out from the hotel before taking the train to Manchester airport and then my flight home to Munich.  It has also been a strange weekend, walking down streets for the first time in 25 years, marveling at the changed landscape of the city and reflecting on how like Munich Leeds actually is, an old city with strong civic traditions that is embracing the modern, yet respecting the old.

When I first arrived I walked around the University and places I used to live, descending into a rather melancholy nostalgia for times past.  This was not surprising and I guess inevitable given the 30 years since I last arrived here as a fresh student.  It was heartening however, that as soon as I started to meet other attendees at the workshop that the ghosts of the past evaporated in the face of my new student friends and colleagues.  The following two days brought back that sense of being a student, of learning for the sake of learning and enjoying the flow of intellectual debate.

Looking back on the weekend, it worked and it worked very well, with perhaps one small problem.  I get a sense that students on the course sometimes look at the relationship with the OCA as a customer vendor transaction, expecting all that comes with the purchase of an expensive item.  However, as Peter rather forcefully pointed out this is a Tutor Student relationship.  As degree students it is our job to learn, but not the OCA's job to teach.  They exist to guide and motivate, only the student can work out what it is they need to achieve.  This and the ongoing debate about submission for assessment derailed the first session and in a sense stopped a key element of the courses purpose, a discussion of the transition from 1st to 2nd and 3rd year study.  Perhaps it reflects many of our origins in the sciences and engineering where tuition is more structured than in the arts, but this continual argument, on the web and here in the classroom, about what students should expect from the OCA and how they should submit for assessment was very disappointing.

Fortunately Mishka Henner arrived and the whole weekend came alive with inspiration and new ideas.  This and the session from Duckrabbit introduced the real world of art and photography, providing a neat contrast between the potentially starving artist and the commercially viable production company.  In both cases photography was subverted to create new meaning using cutting edge technology.  In each case I was filled with ideas of the potential of these new media, but also a sense of the immense amount of work needed to produce relatively short pieces of work, whether a book or a photofilm.  I just bought an introductory ebook on video production to read on the way home.  I have a sense that video or at least audio could become a key element of what I do.  Recently I have produced two very basic photofilms, a slide show with music and 14 hours of time lapse.  The workshop has provided ideas and made visible techniques that could substantially improve my approach to this type of project.  It has also legitimized this technology on my mind, hopefully also in that of the OCA assessors - OK, I am not going there.

The visiting artists were balanced by two thought provoking lectures (OK seminars) from Peter and Jesse addressing Semiotics and Project development respectfully.  Each used the case study model to introduce complex subjects that would generally need a term to study.  Both were basic introductions, but heavily couched in the speakers own experience and practice.  As a theory student from back in the day, semiotics very much appealed and is worthy of further study, but only when I have time to set aside, this is not something to breeze through.  The project development session highlighted dedication and patience.  Again this is a vaste topic and rather than provide an A-Z of planning a project, Jesse stepped through his own student experience.  What came out was that these works take time, a lot of time, the 7 day exposure of one image illustrated that degree of commitment needed to do unique and interesting work.  On the other hand taking one photograph a week for 4 weeks leaves plenty of time for other student pursuits.

Rounding this off were two workshops, book design and a portfolio review.  The book design session was also case study based, in the sense that we looked at Jesse's student books and then evaluated the success of a number of different works.  This was the weak point on the weekend, I would have rather spent a little more time on design principles, typography and do's and don'ts.  I get it, but I also spend a huge amount of time looking at a reviewing photobooks.  I was looking for something a little more practical here.  On the other hand the portfolio review did give me an opportunity to share two of my own books which were well received, that feedback was something I was looking for as I have not had either book formally looked at.  The portfolio review on the whole was very enlightening, a wide variety of generally very well though out work. We all needed a steer, but we also had a good grounding.

My own work was weak and I do need to go away and think about it.  The B&W processing is too strong and the prints overly graphical.  That should not be too hard to fix.  The more critical comment, was why am I working in B&W when everything else I have done is in colour.  It was observed that I can handle the structural side of things and colour management is not a big issue, so why use colour now.  I need to think on this and come back to it in a later blog.  A key suggestion was to use multimedia in the work to include the sound of the city and the voices of the people.  Gonna need to buy a microphone.  The last comment was that my work did not engage with the people, but that it actually part of the point, I want to be detached and objective, that is my way of looking at the world and reflects who I am.  I cannot engage and do not really want to.

Balancing all of this was the chit chat and camaraderie that accompanies such events.  The weekend format meant we had two evenings together and plenty of time for informal debate, valuable and also simply fun.  Being in Germany makes me very remote from the OCA, I cannot realistically attend very many study days.  I find myself becoming quite insular and isolated, so this weekend was a welcome shot in the arm and a reminder that I belong to a community of students who as well as wanting to learn also look out for each other and provide much needed support.  I am hoping that the conclusion is that these are valuable events and that this will form the basis for future extended seminars or tutorials.  I would be more than happy to spend a long weekend with my fellow students each year as I progress towards the degree.