indyish and open journal by risa
this is one of my state of the union posts i guess where i fill you in on where we’ve been and what i’ve been thinking about behind the scenes of this hydra headed beasty. Indyish launched with joy and much brilliant art, there were 12 music videos made, and 12 unique garments, and a boutique and clothing swap and software lesson, and the next day we were working on websites that we were paid to make (as opposed to the ones we go happily into debt for). We also did some work on revamping touchbasic, and trying to make our resumes and stuff up to date. touchbasic is our base of operation for web site makin and consulting (which is what i’m doing for day-job-dough at the yellowpages.ca). we’ve been calling touchbasic The Mothership for a while (it’s the high drama names that help keep things growing, sometimes, i think. anyway, i definitely respond well to drama.) it’s nice to have that site looking all professional now, and i think it does a pretty good job of reflecting the great work el does.
We’re also steadily blogging over on the indyish blog, so that’s where we are when we’re not here and you’re missing us. That blog is finding it’s voices, and finding a balance between event posting and arts and network thinking, and because of my recent time spent working/thinking on this it’s more clear to me then ever what it is about Open Journal that is still essential to me as a communicating space.
this is the spot for unpacking and playing with thought on communication. for me, aside from being a space where i collect quotes and snipits that resonate with me in odd ways on the subject of open communication and the kind of bias and things that affect it, Open Journal is a space for personalized theory; for theory that often begins with subjective experience and feeling, and throws out spider lines and rhymes and emotionalpolitical trajectories from there. I have been very fortunate to have connected with writers over the years who have spent some of their time and energy here, sharing this space with us, doing there own throwing and stitching and weaving. Neil Balan has been our anchor on Open of late, and I’m endlessly relentlessly grateful for all the ways he’s flooded light on ideas I love, and shaken dust and doubt from my own writing, and brought his big brain to bare on questions of open source, opposition and community.
I’ve often said that we will not apologize for times when Open lies fallow, because I think the point of something called Open is that it will be loud or quiet when it’s inhabitants (permanent or nomadic) see fit. But I do wish I could be here fueling this fire all the time, and drawing new people into our conversation. Part of me wishes I could have turned this space into a thriving hotbed of debates, articles, interviews, reviews, etc, and maybe that is still in our future, but if it is it won’t be because I’ve suddenly become a person who meticulously manages and cultivates the space. There is a common personality base to both Indyish and Open, and they are both expressions of a way I want to (and maybe need to) work, and I don’t think that that is likely to change. Both are based on this feeling I have that it must be possible to work with other people to make great things while still being completely self-directed and self motivated. I know that I am like this: I will take on monstrously complex, or time consuming tasks and I will finish them successfully on my own if need be and not fuss too much if they never really get seen. I am very independent when I see something I need to do. I might be happier working on it with others, but only if they want to be there for their own reasons, and if they don’t come out of the woodwork then I am happy working wildly hard on hard things on my own. I do things almost because I can’t help it, and, as Elran knows very well, there isn’t much that can be done to dissuade me from attempting something once I have imagined it and imagined a way that it might be possible. In this context, the existence of Open Journal makes me feel … safe maybe is the best word, because it means there is a space that is always open to big, half baked, twisty, working-on-them thoughts. It is a relief to have a space to publish that is not dependent on someone else giving me permission, and I think that is the greatest gift that the blogosphere gives to writers (and that el has given to me in making me these spaces). I haven’t always done the best job maybe of cultivating this space so that it feels welcoming to others, I have been a fretful and improvisatory Editor, trying to make up rules and guidelines to test them out to see what flies. I treat this all like an experiment sometimes, because I always wonder if there might be new ways to do things like run a Journal, but experiment isn’t necessarily the best way to build systems and relationships that are stable. Still, there’s something about this experiment that I find deeply appealing and satisfying, and reliable in a not-totally stable but still good kind of way, and I am thankful to all those people who have invented this space with me and who will pop up in the future to help us continue to figure it out. I know that I’ll continue to be here with new ideas and bursts of energy and time, and to read the things my co-authors put here with glee at all they have to teach me, and I have comfortable faith that brilliant folks like Neil and OneNeck (only completely unique and not like these old wizened Open Journal pro’s at all, but brilliant in their own ways) will find their way towards surprising me and helping Open grow.
But ahh, there’s so much more that needs to be done to finish following through on the things we want to do with the fall out from that Indyish weekend- we have all these videos that were made that still need to go online, and i want to feature each poster that was submitted in a gallery of some sort, and there are still stories to tell about the people who cropped up from outta nowhere and who i realize now are just more of my friendly neighbors. Montreal is all full of neighbors. And after our weekend of indyish encounters, there are more people to wave at in the street now, and more new friends when out at shows, and this feeling, for me, of a buzzing, interlinking, living network thing that i get to be a part of makes my guilt at all the things i haven’t yet followed through on feel manageable. Manageable enough to spend some time over here on Open today, thinking about how the websites are such cool quiet spaces. So different from street fests like the one fulfilling St.Laurent this weekend. So quiet that it’s difficult to remember that we encounter more people here everyday then we do out on the streets of the city on regular days. It’s a funny media that way- constantly live to other people’s unique experiences of it, but still it feels so personal and private even. The web simultaneously wants us to whisper and confess our secrets to it, and to publish very public arguments and manifestos on it, and it’s those and other contradictory pulls that we explore here on Open Journal.
If you’re self-motivated in some way that’s like the way I describe, if you’re interested in co-authoring this space with us for a while, in theorizing and emoting and gathering bits of news and quotes, or in drawing or painting some of your own ideas about the airy fairy and concrete things that are involved in communication in our ragged, electrified and odd but, I hope, still hopeful world, then write to me and let me know. I’d love to have you.
cheers,
Risa
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