ASSIGNEMENTS

CONTAINER

SELF 

paint as container

I painted objects golden
so they would belong together

Painted cans golden
placed them in the streets
Will they be left or taken?
Is effort recognized and appreciated?

Effort always brings me to the theme of vanitas
- sticky notes saying
MEMENTO MORI

First thing that comes to my mind is my mind.
So I wrote a rant on what I think the mind is,
and what the mind does.
------------------------------------------------->

(It is by no means finished, still working on it.)

As Willem observed it, it's like a computer looping and getting stuck.
Which is very accurate, I think.
That is what the mind does - checking if there is danger, if I should change my actions to avoid it,
project the future, possibilities
all in all - it's pretty irrational.

Self design. The design of what I am.
Because I am.
I am and I is me, I am myself.
I am myself and I am alive. I am not dead. I cannot die. The self cannot die. If it dies, the whole world dies.
So therefore I am. I am - I cannot not be.
I am because I think. I am capable of thinking, of reasoning of rational thought and in doing so there must be someone or something doing this thinking. Like I just said: I must be. That thinking is me. That is who I am.
I think, therefore I am.

That thinking is of importance.
I think I am of importance.
Thinking makes me think I am of importance.
I have to stay alive.
I have to stay away from danger.
I have to keep myself alive and take care that I do not die.
And not even that I do not die but that I keep myself safe.
I'll be safe if I am of importance.
If I accomplish something and others say - he's part of the group! And cannot cast me out.
So I have ambitions.
I have dreams.
The right dreams so I won't be cast outside. And my life will not fall apart.
And I will not die alone.
I am not alone.

There are the others.
Therefore there must me also a me, who wants to connect with others.
See. There must be something there wanting.
There must be something there that wants things or does not want things and clearly knows the distinction.
And that thing doesn't want to be alone.
So I will connect. I am going to be myself and open up for other selves to connect with.
I am can of connections. I am as good as any of them.
Worthy to connect to.

I am worthy because I have made huge efforts to be myself. I have chiseld my personality, I have sharpened my mind, I have pondered, I have come up with conclusions, with solutions, I have made decisions. All the right decisions.
I have crafted myself. I have designed myself.

It has not been easy. But I learned to control myself.
Yes, I have control over myself. I myself is the one who is controlling myself an no one else. I am looking into my eyes and with my mouth I talk into my ear and tell myself to do what I want to do.
I make myself do what I want to - against my own will. So therefore there are maybe two of us...?

Where the two overlap
self design and vanity of the world I thought that a solution could be

EMPATHY

why design yourself?
why not just accept it? 
why not design the optimal surroundings for the self?
the optimal use of the self?

But this is not very elegant - and actually it's kind of scary, I think.

It is my explicitly my aim to broaden minds and options for an audience, (and even those who don't know they are an audience) but it could be more subtle, I think.

and then I thought oh, no, it's getting dense and all far too complicated

And then I intented to celebrate human effort and take a picture of what I have on my workdesk and find every person who has contributed for that thing to be there. Not unlike http://www.thetoasterproject.org/ and please note the allusion to I, pencil.

starting with superglue --------->

and my own work interwoven.

DESIGN

I'll just go play with the internet.

_______FLUCTUAT NEC MERGITUR

________________and CYBERNETICS

in the meanwhile

I wanted to do something with the image of a ship as self.

____NAVIGARE NECESSE EST.

And I made the image of a boat in a bubble that will always be leveled as it rolls.

Now this is also what I want to do: 
make metaphores and symbols,

but where do I put them? 

How can I contextualize it?

Then I succumbed and made various object - the below picture showing one of them.
Relevant because it is also where a container and the self overlaps.
Self projection into the surroundings - perception, mindfulness, being caught and so on.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Because that is also what I did mainly in the previous year - traces at www.karinapalosi.com

But it turned out that on the internet already everything exists, no need to bother.

- showed pixels at Setup, Utrecht
- showed a cartoon at de Waag, Pop-Up gallery, Museumn8
- projected work at BYOB, Utrecht
- participated in Oude Kerk exhibition
- attended Internetworkshop with Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev
- frequented Forms of Today's Future evenings
- Browser Based

THE INTERNET
- the magical new medium all things that people make

PSYCHOLOGY
- how we work, what makes us tick

GENERAL 
ANALYSIS
- how the world works
And analysis because I don't want to change it, just understand it to feel more at ease. And share insights.

NOT ANALYSIS
- but exists,
the unknown unknown discovered.
Cabinet of Curiosities.

Fifth year plans: 

- organize a lot more things with people
- get out of my mind, get out of my comfort zone
- give lectures on anything really
- try to get everything into the browser - as a new means of communication, researching the physical vs the non-physical communication, how it is possible to talk through this window
- make booklets that explain everything
- create new concepts, symbols and images that broaden our experience and understanding (although that's by default what artist do)
- enjoy it all for a change?
- APPRECIATE MY OWN WORK

I MAKE OBSERVATIONS AND I TRY TO MAKE SENSE

So when Klaas gave the assignement to fill an hour, I tried to explain reality and what we should do with it.

ABSOLUTE RULES FOR A RELATIVE WORLD

TECHNOLOGY
- how we use the world we have created.
So this is related to the previous ones.

what is conclusion?

I don't do the work, I try to be as efficient as possible, jump the que and find a shortcut

---- so I have to accept that I have to do even more crap until something magical falls out.

The several nice things I don't kill in the process go by unappreciated, unadvertised, without the needed umpf

---- because I think I can do better, should do better, it should be bigger and pure awesomeness.

I don't want to make a decision, a commitment to concentrate on one thing. Once in two weeks I get a stroke of insight what I should do the rest of my life, but it's always something else.
----I'll deal with that, but help or remarks are appreciated

II'm stubborn and don't listen

---- yeah, that will probably stay like that. I'll try to pay attention and not be frightened by new possibilities.

I seem insecure, but actually I'm not. I whine and I hope someone will solve it for me. But when I have to make decisions, I make them.

---- Accept uncertainty as a method.

Summer plans:

- I'll give a workshop on artistism in June at a local festival
- I want to turn all my ideas into demo's, prototypes, etc.
actually,I  I want to build this one out: http://tagoda.blogspot.nl/
- learn javascript
- decide what to write thesis on
(current options: "The Grand Unified Theory of Art" or unstability as a medium, how to deal with "in betweenness". I prefer the first)

The abstract pleasure of ideas, thinking, of things around us, bladiblah

Unfortunately it's not just one thing I'm interested in but many.

__SO WHAT AM I DOING?
I like to think that I ____________

Relevant extra curricular activities

And with Klaas' help I asked Tabo en Andre from Geen Kunst to come and talk to those interested --- which is something I really liked a lot.
I talked with students to maybe continue organising these kinds of talks.

And this is not necessarily an artwork in itself, but it is a step in the intented direction

what is plan?

definitions

effort

interpretation

meaning

uncertainty

various themes

patterns

Where both cups have a good side and a bad side, but it will of course look the same from both directions. Good cup, bad cup.

(Yes, this is not the best one of the objects, but the most relevant one, hence that it's included here.)

thank you Rhizome designer.

REALITY CHECK

- to see if the world works the way I expect it to.