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Definition through Action.

2022-10-05

2 minute read

The bad news is I stayed up late again, and slept in.
The good news is I'm here now, writing my journal.

I had my first real push at looking for work yesterday, it's intimidating! I'm realising that I'll have to start applying today, knowing that I won't hear a response for most of the jobs I apply for. It's about getting into the habit, and feeling comfortable applying and being ready.

I looked at the flights to Argentina, they're not getting cheaper. I'd also like to see friends and family in NZ, I think I'm going to try to go Melb => NZ => Argentina. I'll buy the flights this week, and that way I can work around it.

I felt a lot of anxiety yesterday, I articulated it well in a txt to my friend Bre:

Feels weird, what has been purely imagination for the last couple of months must now become real.

Like we discovered in the creative writing meetup: the nebulous and vague ideas, that felt so defined in my mind, now require actual definition through action.

champagne for arts sake

I went to a couple of exhibition openings last night, one at VCA and one at Melbourne Uni. The first one was a pretty standard art school thing, abstract, multimedia expression. The second one was a collab exhibition, with work by a few artists, including Andy Butler. I've seen Andy around a lot, Benjamin told me he used to work at westspace and he has a studio in collingwood yards. That explains it! I also talked to Scotty So a fair bit, which was nice. I've met him before briefly, he's got a good sense of humour. I get the impression he's a big deal, based on the people that approach him randomly to say they're a fan. I think I'm a little too far outside of the Melbourne/Aus art scene to understand, or at least too fresh. Maybe in time, for now I get to meet him as all artists should be met: as funny people doing funny things.

what else?

Benjamin recommended I read Anne Frank's diary, which I think I will do as a way to further this journal as a practice.

I read Of All Their Possible Variations, a blog post on Are.na by Agnes Cameron, reflecting on mathmatical Category Theory with non-mathmatician language, and applying the way of thinking to other non-mathmatical things. Agnes is an artist/practitioner I really look up to. Their website is delightfully minimal, and content forward. They think deeply about things, and research effectively, such that their writing and projects feel extremely well informed and clearly presented. Their artwork too is fun, well executed and documented, if I wasn't so inspired I'd be jealous. And they teach!

I feel like I am doing all I can to avoid applying for work :-O. To help me move forwards, here's what I'm going to do today to help the effort:

I made a gif from a video I took walking home last night, here's the ffmpeg command. I wanted it to be below 1mb, but only managed 2.2mb.

ffmpeg -i IMG_1498.MOV -vf "fps=9, scale=-1:480:flags=lanczos,split[s0][s1];[s0]palettegen=max_colors=32[p];[s1][p]paletteuse=dither=bayer" -loop 0 meat.gif

and here's the gif:
meat hanging in a window, price tags fluttering

listening to

Oklou

questions