20240702020021.WAV

CONSIDER THIS:

HAVE YOU EVER DONE SOMETHING COOL?

‘I DON’T BELIEVE YOU’

IF YOU DIDN’T WRITE IT DOWN

OR TAKE A PICTURE

OR POST ABOUT IT ON INSTAGRAM

DID IT EVEN HAPPEN?

CONSIDER THIS:

HAVE YOU EVER DONE SOMETHING BAD?

I SAW YOU DO IT

NOW, LOOK AT ME IN THE EYES

NOW, TELL ME YOU DIDN’T TRY TO HIDE THE EVIDENCE

this project is a shared narrative experiment playing with the process, form and matter of written documentation. from voyeurs to exhibitionists, this intervention attempts to expose and share the blurring of boundaries between subject, audience, and documentarian. 

on this day at six o’clock lucy lu went to the bar. she stood outside for about three minutes until she

This project began on the heels of interrogating ourselves on the role of documentation in art. Particularly relevant to non-paintbrush-canvas-paper artistic practices, the documentation of the art becomes central—did the art even occur if there is no proof of it happening? How can the piece best be recorded, documented, so that its essence remains unchanged and comes through in a way that represents what was done? When is the subject an exhibitionist and the artist a voyeur, and how do these roles change as the piece comes to completion (if at all)? Is the documentation art in itself? Is documenting alone art?

We decided that to explore these questions through the useful task of documenting all collective activity, through a shared written logbook, every day, for 28 days. The documentation was to be recorded within a framework:

-        Dated and timestamped entries
-        Current location with regards to Dixon Avenue
-        Comment on collective activity
-        Third person narration style

Have you ever done something, with intent, for 28 days in a row? We hadn’t either. Throughout the process, the logbook, and everything surrounding it, became a piece in itself—ever felt Stockholm syndrome from a project? Yes. Can words really paint a thousand pictures? Yes. Is every single word in it exactly true? In some way, at some point, to one of us, yes. We were voyeurs, we watched and absorbed and processed and recorded it all, in here, for a month. And now, your turn—the documentarian, hiding in the shadows, becomes the exhibitionist, and the subjects and audience become the voyeurs.

https://archive.org/details/a-narrative-experiment_202503 

a narrative experiment - full

ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT
ALL WRITING IS SELF-INDULGENT

All writing is self-indulgent— the written word, just like the sonic and visual forms of documentation, allows the artist and writer to express their personal observations of the outer world. However, filtered through the lens of their own experiences, art is almost always irrevocably subjective to the perspective of the author. Even great writers and artists rarely manage to separate themselves from their creative outputs, which can create a sense of self-importance in artistic pieces. 
This project does not attempt to deny this vanity—no, writing (and nearly all art) indulges, and sometimes validates, the artist’s personal observations of their inner and outer worlds. That is, after all, why art can affect us, and be moving, funny, or interesting. This piece does not refute the self-indulgence of making art; rather, it was an interrogation of what would happen if creative attention was focused purely on observing and recording (ie. ‘collecting’) other people, every day, for 28 days. 
The collections took place over the same time period, but were geographically removed from one another. A corollary of the project was that the observations of the collected subjects, though worlds apart in space, were essentially the same in their fundamental humanness. Soften your eyes, soften your hearts. Maybe all writing is not just self-indulgent after all. 

noa amson

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