Even though I am working to the extended online program for my MA the course offers three periods where students can come together if they wish. I chose to attend the first session as this would provide me with the chance to meet fellow students, none of which I have previously met.
However the first challenge was getting into the venue but was made easy by the staff.
I arrived in good time and spent a few minutes orientating myself to the space. The main building in modern but our group was based in the North Block and I had come prepared to wheel some distance but as it turned out the room was only about 50 feet beyond the main gates.
The room was a traditional artists’ studio populated with paint, Apple Macs, screens and people.
Jonathan, the course leader set the scene and some of us shared our work and thinking behind it. I kicked this off.
Reflecting on the session I found it interesting that talking about one’s work can make things clearer than writing about them because the dialogue calls for quicker thinking and so brings out a different type of thought than if one analyses and writes . I am very clear on my way forward now and the key issue of ensuring that my work calls for much thought in terms of contexts, association and production values in order for me to enable people to either get my discourse or at least engage with it.
I got a lot out of seeing other peoples work and took away quite a lot to think about in terms of physicality of the end product as the nature of the digital processing was set within the contexts of physical artefacts in more than one students’ work (slate, paint, foam etc) and I have not got to that point – where I think about it’s physical being (if at all) – in my work yet.
It was great meeting so many students and staff but it was also a little weird as I acquired a new and different sense of many of those whose work I have read and seen online.
A day very well spent.
anomiepete 
How exciting to meet your cohort 🙂
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