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Last Issue: #31 The Journey
Twenty thousand leagues under the sea by Jules Verne (1825-1905). This book is the answer to my thoughts on travel. It certainly anticipated the saga...Read more
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Loading ...In his essay “How to write a dissertation”, Umberto Eco recommends that students avoid playing the part of the solitary genius holed up in their room, writing. He suggests that we should always discuss things with others, so our work can be read and criticised.
Over the years, this warning has been a constant thorn in my side. I always try to work out whether I am playing the solitary genius, or whether I really should be working alone in my study, maybe with a double lock on the door.
In fact, perhaps because I am vaguely enthusiastic about DIY, I’ve always been rather independent in my career as well.
As a photographer, in order to fully identify with the final picture, I immediately learned that my black and white photos should be developed and printed in the darkroom. Today, I am pleased that the digital revolution has also allowed me to develop giant photographs covering several square metres “at home” – pictures that I once had to have printed in a laboratory. Most importantly, while I never got exactly what I wanted even though I worked with excellent printers, I can now get much closer to achieving the targets I set for myself because I can control the production process right through to the end.
What we consider to be our best very rarely coincides with what is acceptable to other people. Inevitably, if you believe in what you do, you’ll do it in your own way, and risk getting it wrong.
Like the old saying goes, very often it really is true that if you do things by yourself, you do the work of three people. Not only do you check each stage of the process yourself, stopping only when you are really satisfied with the end result, but above all, you usually spend less.
Obviously, if you do things by yourself, you risk – something that has already happened to me – being treated as a presumptuous one man band, who is convinced he can control things that are not his responsibility. The fact remains that a contemporary artist, in any discipline, usually has (or, I believe, should have) a fairly clear idea about his own work. For example, when I set up a project, I already imagine how I’d like the book, the format, the graphics, the frames of the exhibition… I have a vision, and I follow it through to the end.
My personal modus operandi is this: 1) I research every possible source of information and ideas from every angle, for a certain period of time; 2) I shut myself up in my room and try to get a result from everything I’ve gathered.
The only people I have to listen to are the maestros and the fanatical specialists. The maestros (everyone has his own list) can provide a mine of advice and information that we need to take note of. Obviously, they are the best yardstick. Advice from fanatical specialists, on the other hand (hackers, scanner enthusiasts, printing experts) allow you to keep your own know-how up to date with changing technologies and techniques.
As I do a creative job, my ideal public are the people with an interdisciplinary approach to art and culture. After all, an intellectual, like a good psychotherapist, can always see things from angles that we do not understand, or cannot reach. What gives me the most satisfaction is producing an articulated work that will be recognised by a multi-faceted public, made up of people from different cultural and educational backgrounds.
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