A Four Part Respose including musings to Michaels Comment on Page 9 of the CVP Workbook by risa
here is the comment I’m responding too. when a comment gets long, as mine did, it should become a post. people subscribe to posts, but not necessarily to comments and, as in the sampled words used in a good Kobayashi song, “if you’ve got something to say then say it.”
First thing, regarding a piece on Indy Anime: Michael, I’m so glad you’d like to write something about indy anime, I literally pumped my fists in the air. Take your time, but man, I can’t wait to read up on that.
Next thing, regarding who and what’s behind the CVP designs: The designs on these [tag]consistent variable project[/tag] pages are not by me, I’m not sure if you thought they were but I should make sure this is extra clear. The Table of Artists is here. I only made one, and then put the book together. Steevee Dam made the [tag]unicorn hat[/tag], for example, and I have no idea what his motivation was. (I know he made a [tag]mexican wrestling[/tag] costume complete with shorts and mask for the CVP Trail 2 that happened recently, if that tells you anything.)
I would have posted each artist’s name with their piece, which would have been great because we do pretty well in the search ranks, and then the pages would have come up when people googled their names, but one girl doesn’t want the project to come up when people google her name (she’s a painter) and it turns out not every signed the release form, including her, and so that kind of put me in a position.
So the names all appear on that Table of Artists page, and it’s meant to be a bit of a back and forth through the book to find out who people are, so it’s fun. I did the same kind of thing with the Author’s Page, writing it up in a way that was meant to invite investigation and play. And because the names are on an image they don’t get crawled by search engines. The danger, of course, is that it’ll look like I’m trying to pass them all off as my own. In reality- over 50 people participated.
Anyway, had to get that out there.
Third Thing, regarding colour and and drawings: The more interesting point, as you mention, is the play of colour. Every participant was given the exact same kit. The colours and textures were all predetermined by the project launchers, Clayton Evans and Sarah Collins. Who knows why they picked green duck and pink cotton- maybe that was what was on sale, or maybe they were feeling springy. It definitely gave the designs a certain orientation. We had a littl eover a month to make something using the kit, and only the kit. The rules are here.
The drawings of the pieces all started as tracings of these photos, so they’re kind of like reflections gone wild. Thea Jones took the tracings and layered them, glued some together, and drew charaters emerging from some of them, filling them up with an other, animated life. Then I took the tracings and drawings and played with them. The one in the lefthand corner of this page was a black and white drawing, she hadn’t coloured it, and so I could fill it out with any colours I wanted using photoshop.
Fourth Thing, regarding self, loss, hauntings and tracings: Also interesting, to me anyway, is that it’s a tracing of a photo of me. I find tracings haunting- your form is left there without you and that always makes my belly turn because it makes me think of Hiroshima. Somehow that one feature of a decade of violence stands out, and marks any and all thoughts i have about shadows and tracings. The bomb made a mark that turned into a metaphor so powerful it brands everything near it, at least in my head, and I think that’s probably a good thing.
I feel like I could quote from Barthes’ Camera Lucida here about the sense of disorientation and loss that comes with capturing our image, except it’s not the pictures that bother me as they do him. It’s the tracings- that they could be filled out by anyone, by imaginary things, but behind them, in the instant that was caught and then recaught, but that’s actually long gone, there was me, the day i got all my hair cut off. Not to be too dark, but someday I’ll be gone in a more profound sense then the moment is gone, and only tracings will exist. This whole site is like a tracing of my mental life for the past few years, and someday people will encounter the voice that’s left here even though the speaker will be gone. All of us will still be here, like a chorus that’s still going on. Similarly, we can go back and carry on conversations we started last year, or two years ago, as though we’re fighting with earlier versions of ourselves. Only over time does it become apparent that, when we’ve been successful, we’ve been open sourcing something of ourselves. I love the quality of time and space that exists here, and it certainly does keep me coming back, but you just can’t shake the fact that it’s a bit haunting.
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