Where do I go now?
So what is this all about?
The anatomy of our skills exchange is complex. It doesn’t lend itself to soundbites. There are no easy answers only questions and it is the questions that must be found. It must be questions that the maker must look for as he travels down the road.
Anatomy is structure and so it must be to structure that we first look to. So let’s start there, with that.
The anatomy of mutantspace is built around the maker. It is for the maker and seeks to support him in his mark making, aims to build a functioning system that allows the maker the freedom to express his creativity and give him space to experiment and play. To build this structure we must look closely at the maker and seek to divine the core of his mark making, look to develop a fluid space in which he can easily move through as he travels down his road, moves through failure and confronts the endless red tape and bureaucracy that prevents, confuses and compounds his problems.
So the first question must be to me. How do I, as narrator tell the story of a maker while working through the anatomy of mutant space? How do I relay the essence of this experiment while keeping an eye on the road, my road? Is it always to be questions? Open ended? Do I fix a space in which the maker travels if I commit words to paper? Is the act of definition, explanation, clarification a negation of flux, of a mutant space?
I don’t know. But, what I do know is that I must attempt to find the right question to ask in order to clarify the structure, the existence of mutant space. It is a risk I must take. I hope not to constrict the experiment through words, rather I hope through questioning I may reach a point of clarity. The anatomy of mutant space is constantly changing and it is as easy to get lost down the cul de sac of an idea as it is to drown in a sea of half baked thoughts. The maker must be allowed to wander, to follow his own path without being directed by me. And there lies the crux. How does one build a structure, study an anatomy without drawing conclusions that constrain the anarchy of making, of marking moments in time.
Perhaps I should begin with a question and in attempting to answer it another question will be found. And within the story of the maker and his journey a picture of the anatomy of mutant space will be arrived at. So let us go back to our young maker
To make your first mark, to first find your feet is an exhilarating experience, a ritualistic initiation into a world of creativity and the young maker felt on top of the world. He knew his first gesture, mark wasn’t perfect; it was crude, vague, a smudge of many ideas converging suddenly, together, as if afraid of suffocating within him. The mark said more about his place on the road rather than the expression of a clear idea.
And then he went on. To where he wasn’t sure but he was hungry for more, hungry to play, experiment and create. Ideas swept through him, over and everything seemed bright.
“So where do I go now?” He wondered. “Do I keep going on towards the horizon, stopping every so often to make a mark, or is there something else to it?” How do I go on from here? Which way do I turn?”
Many young makers ask these simple yet fundamental questions. Often the first thrust of energetic mark making is the easiest. The line is clear. The boundary line all to obvious. There is a simple choice one life or the other. After that it is altogether different, more nuanced; political, culturally complex.
367 total views, 1 today
